We Need Better Lightning Bolts

It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
- Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958- ), in his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes
If only…
Those who claim that organized religion is on the wane may be correct. A few key reasons come to mind.
First, religion is supposed to benefit the [...]

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The Secret Law of Abundance

The secret of the law of abundance is this: In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give.
- Norman Vincent Peale, inspirational writer and speaker (1898-1993)
I confess that I have never heard of the “law of abundance” other than in this quote. The number of citations on Google is [...]

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How Bad Will The Future Really Be?

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, nicknamed “the wise” Roman Emperor, (121 CE – 180 CE)
An emperor of Rome, indeed the leader of any country up to modern times, would need [...]

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The Night The Moon Will Appear Square

Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian writer of psychological novels (1830-1916)
We live in a world molded to a great extent by both science and economics. They don’t control our moment to moment existence, but they form the framework around which we tend to build our belief [...]

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You Were Inevitable

“Life only starts to make sense when you realize that sometimes–often all the time–two completely contradictory ideas can be true.
Everything that led up to you was wrong. Therefore, you should not have been born.
But everything about you is right: You had to be born.
You were inevitable.”
- Jonathan Coe, The Rain Before it Falls, Viking (U.K.), [...]

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Why You Lost At Love

In real love you want the other person’s good. In romantic love, you want the other person.
- Margaret Anderson
In one line we have a summary of the difference between two very important kinds of love in our life.
With romantic love, we want something from the other person, something incoming from the other person (whom we [...]

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How We Learn To Love An Unhealthy Lifestyle

 
As I write this I am experiencing a high level of anxiety brought about by stress from many different sources over a period of several weeks, my present purpose being to convey not my feelings but the effects that stress over a long period of time has on my thinking and decision making. The effects [...]

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It’s About time

 For most of human history since the dawn of the agrarian age (about 12,000 years ago) our ancestors looked outside their homes in the morning, checked the sky and thought OK, I can do this task today (or I can’t because the weather’s not right). Though they had sundials and clocks existed in some places, [...]

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Go Ahead, I Dare you

Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body
and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get
rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances
drive them to do.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)
Checking the dates of birth [...]

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Blaming Is For Losers And Bigots

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be
unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)
When I first read this quote, I stumbled over the word “bigotry.” I didn’t associate bigotry with being right or wrong, but with people hurting [...]

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