Sometimes it is easier to figure out how you do not want your life to turn out than to outline what you would like it to be. So here is my anti-vision: I do not want a life spent… In places where presence matters less than prestige With complaining, complacent people who take life for…
Defaults
The limitations of our options, cognitive awareness, and practical capabilities make defaults in decisions, responses, and actions almost necessary. Sometimes we simply do not have the time or information required to do otherwise. But when defaultness becomes all they are — where actions become reflexes and “oh, that’s nice” is but a hollow exhaled reaction…
To Live As If…
It fascinates me how easily we live as if certain things are real, whether or not they actually are. These could be presuppositions about life, reality, and the way things work, opinions about how situations work themselves out, learned reactions to the flavors of happenstance — all of which we inevitably collect through life and…
Passion Requires Substance
Certain conditions must be met before you could enjoy even the most intense and personal of your interests. When the cost of entry and maintenance exceeds the substance you have placed into a ‘passion’ — all that you have developed it into, the structure and content and space you have afforded it to become something…
Why So Serious?
When a friend told me the rhetorical question “why so serious?” is basically his life motto these days, something in me flickered into darkness — then burst into flaming light ten times brighter than before. (That is, the serious part of me. What else?) I wanted to write a thousand-word essay in response, arguing for…
Live By What You Have Understood
“Live out what you understand” seems to be a solid outline of what living honestly requires. Being articulate and speaking your mind is one thing. That alone is a high standard — you must first think, then know your own thoughts enough to express them in ways understandable to other minds. But what if what…
Not a Good Place to Park
Yesterday morning found me in a ditch after Icarus decided to follow a bend in the road that did not exist. A tired and distracted mind, sketchy gravel roads, and a near-illegal speed came together to land my car and I in a spot that, as a goodnatured passerby helpfully pointed out, is “not a…
Do What Matters To You Now
A short self-reminder in case future me forgets this basic lesson current me has been learning this month: Figure out what matters to you right now. Do that thing. Simple, no? The directness is un-one-uppable. The subjectivity is powerful. The immediacy is necessary. The actions – the think, the decision, the deed – must become…
Unconscious Cruelty
One of the bitter realities of being an individual is realizing that the hurt others add into your life are, more often than not, not even meant to to cause you pain. – The repeated suggestions and comments made by loved ones for you to give up a pet animal or a ‘hobby’ or a…
Outsourcing Existence
I had an experience a month ago which did not entirely catch me by surprise. (Well, maybe the context was unexpected. But only that.) In late May/early June, I met with a father and son for an introductory “Are we a good fit?” Zoom call to discuss the potential of his son joining a highschool…