Words, words, words! I’m so sick of words I get words all day through First from him, now from you Is that all you blighters can do? – Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady I used to feel that words, that language, were an infinite resource. That no matter how many I used, there would… Read more »
Illustration by Bertall. I was trying to find a story for a friend, a Zen koan about a master slapping his student. They were walking through a field and a flock of geese rose up, and the student commented how beautiful they were. Then the master slapped him, and he experienced a moment of satori…. Read more »
Yesterday, I received a voicemail during the day stating that the message was urgent. It was the second such message I had received in two weeks. By way of explanation, during the day (and often, during the evening) I have very little time to make phone calls unless they are scheduled like appointments. Besides not… Read more »
Photo by Alan Levine. I believe that being a poet is a revolutionary act. Please note, I did not say writing or reading poetry. I said, “Being a poet.” For me, this means witnessing the world and one’s self with poetic vision. Poetic vision includes a potency, a quality of existence that both descends and… Read more »
Photo by Taylor Lee Chapman. For the last seven months or so, my high school friends and I have been engaged in a project we never anticipated—every Sunday night at 10 pm Eastern Time, wherever we are and whatever we are doing, we stop, and we send good vibes or a song of the week… Read more »
Maurice Merleau-Ponty Since Husserl, phenomenological philosophers have dialogued with the empirical sciences in an attempt to contribute to a more complete human science—a science that speaks to the fullness of being human. The job of our philosophers, in this context, is to invite an opening up of an epistemological conversation that renews the sciences’ exploration… Read more »
Photo by Andreas Praefcke via Wikimedia Commons The question of what constitutes psychological well-being has always fascinated me because it appears so elusive. With the exception of positive psychology, it is most readily defined as an absence of psychopathology and efforts to assert its constituent parts seem under theorized. Yet the notion of psychological well-being… Read more »
(Creative Commons license) Years of working with adults with developmental disabilities have left me with questions regarding the meaning and meaningfulness of the lives of people who experience high levels of mental retardation. I mean something different here from purpose. What a divine entity might mean for these people must remain a question beyond my… Read more »
