Author Archives: John Swinburn

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes

A Short and Cynical Critique of Society

Posted on February 17, 2020 by John Swinburn

We sometimes fail to see massive changes in society because they occur in response to much smaller—seemingly innocuous—changes. For example, governments at all levels, over time, began to mimic customer service practices originally initiated by businesses. The idea was to … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Thinking, Politics, Rant | Leave a comment

Insignificant Expectations

Posted on February 16, 2020 by John Swinburn

David Copperfield and Great Expectations both were written in the first person. Neither novel, nor their plot lines, have anything to do with what’s on my mind this morning. But, like most of what I write, relevance often is out … Continue reading →

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Musing on Health and Such

Posted on February 15, 2020 by John Swinburn

Age is the enemy of good health; the greater the age, the more powerful the enemy. That is not always true, of course, but lately it seems to be an increasingly factual axiom. As I age, I increasingly engage in … Continue reading →

Posted in Emotion, Health, Logic, Mortality | 1 Comment

The Illusion of Love

Posted on February 13, 2020 by John Swinburn

I find it hard to say “I love you” to most people for whom I feel that emotion (or something like it). The church I joined a couple of years ago, after being not only churchless but actively anti-church and … Continue reading →

Posted in Love | Leave a comment

A Fleeting Period of Perpetual Rain

Posted on February 12, 2020 by John Swinburn

Endless sunshine always is interrupted by fleeting periods of perpetual rain. The weather has always been this way. The everlasting pattern of dark and wet, then bright and dry, will continue forever, until it ends. Everything is impermanent and has … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Weather | Leave a comment

A Great Civil War

Posted on February 11, 2020 by John Swinburn

It’s strange, isn’t it, that I’ve been glued to coverage of the New Hampshire primary this evening? Perhaps not. The battle between Democratic candidates for President offers some hope that we may see the demise of the demon in the … Continue reading →

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I Knead a Massage

Posted on February 11, 2020 by John Swinburn

Facebook gave me an opportunity to change the “old look” to the new. I took them up on it. I loathed the new look. I wasn’t crazy about the old one, either, but the new look reminded me of the … Continue reading →

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Looking for Serenity

Posted on February 11, 2020 by John Swinburn

Attempting to achieve anything remotely resembling a sense of serenity these days seems to be a fool’s errand. We are bombarded around the clock with news telling us that almost everything we hold dear is under assault in some form … Continue reading →

Posted in Peace, Serenity | Leave a comment

Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012)

Posted on February 10, 2020 by John Swinburn

Wisława Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966. I did not know that until the morning of February 9, 2020. I do not believe I had ever even heard her name until that moment. But when I … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

The Spring that Refreshes

Posted on February 9, 2020 by John Swinburn

A blogger friend’s post this morning, about her back yard in Sweden, got me thinking about Spring and flowers and plants and such. She wrote about feeding the birds and putting in plants that feed birds and butterflies and the … Continue reading →

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Smooth Stones

Posted on February 8, 2020 by John Swinburn

When I find myself looking down through water flowing over a bed of smooth rock, my mind wanders back in time. Not months or years, but ages. Eons. More years than I can imagine. And when I see a large, … Continue reading →

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A February Mood

Posted on February 7, 2020 by John Swinburn

The temperature outside at 4:00 a.m., a short while after I awoke, registered 25 degrees, just half the number of Fahrenheits the weather witches are forecasting for today. If, indeed, the temperature reaches 50 degrees, today will eclipse yesterday by … Continue reading →

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Structured Thinking with a Bit of Flex

Posted on February 6, 2020 by John Swinburn

A tiny bit more structured introspective assessment, please. Nothing imbued with gravitas, though; let’s keep it light and airy, to the extent introspection makes that possible. Keep it flexible so it can bend the way my mind bends. Mind-bending. Does … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Leave a comment

The Question is a Serpent

Posted on February 5, 2020 by John Swinburn

Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life I ask myself the question over and over and over and over, hoping to one day find an answer: “Who am I, under the veneer?” It hasn’t even been a … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Ruminations | Leave a comment

The Capacity for Understanding

Posted on February 4, 2020 by John Swinburn

As I was reading some of my old blog posts, looking for a reason to cling to hope for humanity, I came upon the following words which were included in a longer sentence: …we must be capable of acknowledging and … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideas, Intellect | Leave a comment

Cloaking Fashion in a Different Framework

Posted on February 3, 2020 by John Swinburn

I wonder why men’s capes and cloaks fell out of fashion? That question has plagued me (a slightly dramatic overstatement, perhaps) for some time. Aside from the drama of the question, though, it’s a reasonable question. Alas, I have no … Continue reading →

Posted in Clothes, Fashion | 1 Comment

In Lieu of More Poetry

Posted on February 2, 2020 by John Swinburn

My SleepNumber app tells me I was in bed for four hours and thirty-nine minutes last night; four hours and eight minutes of which were identified as “restful sleep.” The 4:08 figure compares unfavorably with my restful sleep average of … Continue reading →

Posted in More Thought Bubbles | Leave a comment

The Cost

Posted on February 2, 2020 by John Swinburn

Words left unspoken Thoughts never shared Love never given Hearts never bared Hurt not softly soothed Life like a cell Hate freely given Tears never fell Eyes lacking for sight Regret not felt Emptiness so cold Knees never knelt Heartaches … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Leave a comment

The Mouthfeel of Meat

Posted on February 1, 2020 by John Swinburn

The problem is not the flavor. The problem is the texture. I am confident I can achieve the flavor with relative ease. What I cannot imagine being able to do is replicate the texture to a sufficient degree to enable … Continue reading →

Posted in Food | Leave a comment

Shrapnel

Posted on February 1, 2020 by John Swinburn

The confetti from the explosion filled his chest. There was still room for his lungs and his heart and his liver and so forth, but the formerly roomy spaces were clogged with shrapnel. The wounds in his flesh healed over … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

Four in the Morning Thought Bubbles

Posted on January 31, 2020 by John Swinburn

Six-plus hours of fitful sleep is better than none. A dull, throbbing headache is better than intense, almost excruciating pain. So, my life experience has improved since I went to bed early, around 9:15 p.m. But it’s not up to … Continue reading →

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Luck is a Happy Delusion

Posted on January 30, 2020 by John Swinburn

Many of the most impactful events of our lives are governed by happenstance. They are just accidents of time and circumstance that intersect at malleable moments. People with whom we become lifelong friends or lifelong enemies; our spouses; careers we … Continue reading →

Posted in Friendship | Leave a comment

Along the Bloody Spectrum

Posted on January 29, 2020 by John Swinburn

I am an old infidel. A practicing heathen. A believer in knowledge and a follower of facts. Those truths notwithstanding, I am no longer the active antagonist toward religion I once was. There was a time I would have called … Continue reading →

Posted in Peace, Philosophy, Religion | Leave a comment

A Course in Catching Fish

Posted on January 28, 2020 by John Swinburn

My blog has long since become too voluminous for me to be able to determine whether I have already written about any given topic. In all probability, whatever the topic, I have. But my memory of having written about a … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy | 3 Comments

It’s Over

Posted on January 27, 2020 by John Swinburn

You wanted to tell her how much she meant to you, but you waited too late. You waited until she didn’t mean as much. You waited until her faults flooded your brain and drowned your good intentions. You put off … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Writing | 1 Comment