Pandemic Year
It stopped moving, the seconds pendulum in my parents ’ grandfather clock. When was that? …. I am confused as ?)aren’t you(? I sit here looking facing the glass bay doors to the clock of my world Home more than not (…except when…) I have watched the sun pendulum from one side of the world and back and I just don’t know their clock has not worked since…what?…the 80s? and this now, then, is……
Philosophy as/and/or Religion
1. In laying out the idea that there may be some value in thinking of philosophy as good for nothing, I drew comparisons between a certain way of conceiving of philosophy and what I take to be the best way to conceptualize Dōgen’s understanding of the practice of seated meditation or zazen. For Dōgen, you sit just to sit, not for some other end (wink wink). If we take seriously Socrates’ claim in the Apology that practicing philosophy is the…
Daily Song
I don’t do it often enough, but I intend to start the day with the following, “song.” It is original in a sense, or parts are, but much/most of it is taken from others, some more, some less obvious. Let it be like a scavenger hunt! And what happens when we take such a song into our heart and return to it daily? Thus begins another day for which I am overflowing with gratitude. Great is my fortune and…
Intimate (with) Life–for Kobayashi Issa
Suffering, Creativity, and Genius
What would Nietzsche make of us? What would Nietzsche make of the T-shirt you can find on Facebook that is a spoof of a beer label. It reads, “Nietzsche’s Übermensch/Superior Quality/It’s Beyond Good/Zarathustra & CO. Distillery/Consume Responsibly.” If there were a God who gave him a soul, would Nietzsche turn in his grave? What would he think about the fact that over the years I have viewed his writings as a kind of self-help? That is, and perhaps ironically, if…
Walt Whitman and Crossing the Boundaries of Consciousness
My dear reader, forgive me for what is most likely a projection. I am loath to admit it but often when poetry begins some prose piece that I am to read, I do little more than skim it. I have never even read through all of the poems that begin Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. Please do not gasp too loudly—I know I’m a terrible human being. So, please do not be like me. Please read these selections (and ideally the…
Midlife Crisis: Or First Draft of a Book Preface
It seems to me that my life, like surely many people’s lives, resembles the trajectory of modernism to postmodernism (to post-postmodernism?). That is, like many people, when I was a child everything was imbued with a robust intrinsic identity and meaning, both of which could be definitively and determinedly known. One of the most obvious examples of this was the faith in the near omniscience of my parents, and once in school and out of the house, in that of…
Dying. Suffering. Death.
I have suffered death since 3— Grandmother’s open casket— casting a shadow on everything since I have suffered the death of insects—some drowned, some squashed many on their backs refusing to go gently I have suffered the death of animals, some by my hand— both accidental and with tear-shuddering compassion— some on the vet’s table some on the bathroom floor all struggling, gasping: suffering. I have suffered the dying of family, never death itself, that moment. The hospital bed. The…
Philosophy as Good for Nothing: A Manifesto
1. “What is philosophy?”— What kind of question is that? I’ve long found it fascinating and of huge importance that, “What is philosophy?” is itself a philosophical question. This is not the same for other fields. That is, “What is science?” is not a scientific question. Perhaps if it is read as asking, “What do people called ‘scientists’ do?” it could be read as an empirical question, though that is not enough to make it scientific. I take the questions, “What…