They are delicious – or can be. I’m sure you’ve had one before. Snow cones are perhaps the most popular and biggest rip-off treats at amusement parks and county fairs. Pack some shaved ice into a paper cone and drizzle your favorite sugary syrup on top. Three bucks, please. But have you ever looked moreContinue reading “The Reality in Your Hand”
Tag Archives: philosophy
Stuck in the Moral Frame
Do you remember when as a child you believed that god watched over you from the ceiling and monsters waited under your bed? When garden fairies enchanted the backyard and goblins lurked in the basement? These invisible beings “imaginated” your generalized intuition of Reality as imbued with conscious personality, agency, and intention. It didn’t matterContinue reading “Stuck in the Moral Frame”
Life in the Egg
Do you know why you’re here? Granted, ‘why’ questions can be notoriously difficult to answer, so let’s start even more basic: Do you know how you got here? Even that question assumes some understanding of what ‘you’ – or more properly “I” (Ego) – and ‘here’ refer to. For goodness sake, is there any pointContinue reading “Life in the Egg”
Fate and Destiny
Some people argue that the human condition is determined by factors deep in our DNA, in mechanisms of survival, adaptation, and extinction embedded in the genetic code of our species. These biological determinists call us back from getting caught up in fantasies of human transformation and thinking we can break free from the bonds ofContinue reading “Fate and Destiny”
Author of Meaning
I’ve been interested in human nature, psychology, and development for a long time. My preference is to consider each of these through the lens of evolution, asking all along what a fully evolved and self-actualized human looks like. Most posts in this blog on creative change come at this question from one angle or another.Continue reading “Author of Meaning”
Alone in the Middle of Everything
Because the adventure of becoming somebody requires its own separate workspace, the entire project along with its product, a unique identity named “I” or ego, has prompted two very different judgments on the matter. Conventional religion typically regards the separate ego – conceived as estranged from its proper and original communion with god – asContinue reading “Alone in the Middle of Everything”
The Shining Way
Religion tends to be different from a mere philosophy of life in its claim to offer a way through, out of, or beyond what presently holds us back or stands in the way of our highest fulfillment. In the genuine traditions of spirituality, such a solution avoids the temptation of either an other-worldly escape on the one hand,Continue reading “The Shining Way”
Living Faith
Tillich: “Here more than anywhere else the dynamics of faith become manifest and conscious: the infinite tension between the absoluteness of its claim and the relativity of its life.” My conversation with Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, and Tillich has emphasized the point that faith is a verb more than a noun. Furthermore it is an act ofContinue reading “Living Faith”
Faith and Existence
Tillich: “If doubt appears, it should not be considered as the negation of faith, but as an element which was always and will always be present in the act of faith. Existential doubt and faith are poles of the same reality, the state of ultimate concern.” In our head-heavy, wordy and overly rationalistic traditions ofContinue reading “Faith and Existence”
Metaphors of God
Heschel: “God is every [human being’s] pedigree. He is either the Father of all people or of no one. The image of God is either in every individual or in no one. God’s covenant is with all people, and we must never be oblivious of the equality of the divine dignity of all people. TheContinue reading “Metaphors of God”