Author Archives: John Swinburn

Recent days have taught me more than I might want to know, but any knowledge—welcome or not—is fuel for both intellectual and emotional development. When I have time to process what I have recently learned, I will make an effort … Continue reading →

Powerful reasons exist for vacations lasting at least two weeks. Fourteen days, at a minimum, are necessary to sufficiently clear one’s head to enable recovery from even the modest pressures of the daily grind. Limiting vacations to less than two … Continue reading →

Across the wide lake, the homes and businesses are almost too far away to see. But they are there. Barely visible, the places where people live and work exist in secret…oh, they do not intentionally hide their day-by-day existence, but … Continue reading →

Art can be spectacularly beautiful, but even the most skilled, talented, visionary artist who specializes in realism cannot replicate the beauty of nature. Slivers of orange and pink and silver and grey woven among cottony white billows in the sky … Continue reading →

Cryptic messages filter through my mind, challenging me to interpret them. Every interpretation is right, but only in certain situations. If I wish the interpretations to be valid, I must insert myself into the correspondingly correct situations. This process is … Continue reading →

Paradise has different meanings for different people. For some, slot machines and the never-ending shrieks of the newly wealthy constitutes paradise. For others, it is white sand beaches littered with bikini-clad women. Others find paradise in ski resorts covered in … Continue reading →

Forgiveness struggles to survive in an environment in which anger is more highly valued than understanding.  Still, it survives, even growing stronger. Anger, though, withers into rancid dust, eventually lost to the winds of time. +++ November 18. 2023 will … Continue reading →

My foray into good news this morning led me, first, to a story of a 15-year-old lion returned to his natural habitat after being abandoned in a private zoo in Armenia for five years.  I then read about a way … Continue reading →

Despite my frequent admonition to myself to steer clear of the “news” every morning, I find myself indulging that bad habit almost every day. Today, as I began scanning the headlines, I felt my blood pressure rise, my jaws tighten, … Continue reading →

A week or two ago I spent about 20 minutes watching the beginning of a Netflix documentary entitled, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. Those introductory 20 minutes fascinated me, and I promised myself I would  continue watching, … Continue reading →

Soft, smooth, silky rope binding one’s body to a cozy chair—despite a sensation of luxury—is like a prison, albeit a momentarily pleasant prison. But prisons, even those resembling spas, restrict freedom. Living a life of luxury, with every desire but … Continue reading →

If the opposite of heat was eleven and papaya was a synonym for alligator, the rest of our words might be equally carnivorous. Clocks and California could be used interchangeably. I once saw an episode of an old black & … Continue reading →

Planet Earth is in full-scale revolt. A deadly earthquake in Morocco. A category 5 hurricane roaring through the Atlantic toward the North American coastline. A pair (at least) of smaller earthquakes off the coast of Jalisco in Mexico. Temperatures raging … Continue reading →

Thunder! Like a series of distant explosions, their immediate bursts of sound followed by hollow echoes and low groans. I imagine thunder as the menacing snarls and growls of angry clouds, threatening to rip the firmament to shreds. If the … Continue reading →

I am weary. Not so much physically tired, but mentally exhausted, as if my brain can no longer deal with a tangled mass of pressures, obligations, expectations, commitments, responsibilities, and more. Drained, like a battery left in a device whose … Continue reading →

One thousand years once seemed an inconceivably long time. So did one hundred years. But after living fifty years, one hundred years seemed considerably shorter. And one thousand years seemed substantially less than forever. With each passing decade, time feels … Continue reading →

Whether these few words I am typing become a full-fledged post will depend on what I learn from my visit downtown this morning. In the meantime, I will attempt to more completely awaken. The hour I spent out of bed, … Continue reading →

New information…new knowledge…can be uplifting. It can cause a bubble of depression to burst, allowing fresh air to renew and rejuvenate one’s mood. Yet learning new things is not guaranteed to improve one’s state of mind. Reality can bring with … Continue reading →

Perhaps the days are coming when people can choose to transform from purely human to human-machine hybrids. Imagine being able to choose to have a device implanted in your body that would enable you—instantly—to fluently speak another language. Complete with … Continue reading →

Drifting in and out of an uncomfortable—sometimes pain-filled—consciousness is not conducive to rest, much less restorative sleep. A combination of insomnia, arthritis pain, and cycling between feeling either too warm or too cool makes for a disagreeable night. But, unless … Continue reading →

Last night, sitting on the deck in darkness, drinking wine, we heard the distinctive sound. Mi novia launched the Merlin app on her phone. The phone listened and informed her of the bird’s identity: a Great Horned Owl.  We have … Continue reading →

Meditation requires the temporary abandonment of impatience, which can be quite difficult. But is it really necessary to abandon impatience? These comments, posted by someone having a difficult time with impatience when meditating, were extracted from a thread on Reddit, … Continue reading →

Bad habits are hard to break. They covertly find ways to circumvent obstacles placed before them, hiding their work-arounds behind opaque veils. At some point, though, their evasions  come to light, angering and embarrassing the habit-holder who discovers he has … Continue reading →

I had almost forgotten about this morning’s scheduled bloodwork. Age and past illness and mortality once again conspire to intrude on my obliviousness to the inevitability of reality. As if that is not enough, my own thought processes are battling … Continue reading →

Negative Space The absence of compassion acts like the negative space used by an artist who unveils images to the viewer by painting around emptiness, drawing the eye to what is not there, revealing what is, by what is missing. … Continue reading →