Category Archives: Ruminations

“What would you wish for if you had but one wish” is impossible to answer correctly. It attempts to force choices where choices don’t belong. Perhaps the only rational answer to the question would be: “I wish I understood everything … Continue reading →

It is reasonable to ponder the conditions under which we expect to be happy, but it behooves us not to allow those thoughts to build a cage that excludes us from happiness in the absences of those conditions. Happiness is adaptive, provided some degree of … Continue reading →

My satisfaction with myself may reside in a journey I have not yet taken. The question is whether the journey will be one of space and distance or time and change; or, perhaps, both. And is satisfaction with oneself a … Continue reading →

Poetry can swing a hammer just as hard as a trained boxer can throw a punch.

I have discovered that wishes and dreams—simple thoughts that go against the grain of socially acceptable ideas—can cause tension headaches. Perhaps it’s not the thoughts that bring on the pain, though; perhaps it’s the contemplation of potential consequences of acting … Continue reading →

Birthdays should be mourned as measures of lost innocence. Each tick of the clock is a reminder of the unraveling of the veil of virtue hiding countless flaws. Sixty-two years ago today, the unraveling began.  

If the armature supporting the skeleton that’s keeping your flesh from falling to the ground begins to melt, settle for the satisfaction of pooling on the pavement. Fighting battles with yourself that you simply can’t win is wasteful use of dwindling … Continue reading →

Emotional wreckage morphs into a shield of immeasurable strength when you exercise control over your own life.

Struggles with oneself pale in comparison to battles with people who want to mold us into someone we were never meant to be. The hardest part of the wars we wage is determining whether we are our best ally our own worst … Continue reading →

Some people seek forgiveness for what they have done; others for who they are. The most dangerous, though, refuse to engage in the search, seeing in it only weakness.

A few days ago, I read about three young homeless drifters who allegedly killed two people in San Francisco. Photos of the suspects, two men and a woman, caused visual memories to spring to mind, images of Charles Manson. If they … Continue reading →

My eyesight bothers me. To see distant images requires me to remove my reading glasses; to see my screen and to read, I need to put them back on. Among many other challenges that fact present is this one, relevant … Continue reading →

Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. ~ Chinua Achebe

Leaning over the deck railing, I felt as if I might lose my balance and tumble twenty feet to the rocks and shrubbery below, so I stood upright and stepped back. Then, I heard it again; a loud rustling, the sound … Continue reading →

We could do worse than live our lives as scavengers, seekers of the used and discarded. By giving new life to the the too-early-abandoned outcasts deemed by others wrung of practical value, we enrich our lives and give the planet … Continue reading →

When I hear the word ‘serpent,’ my brain conjures a willfully angry and vengeful creature, a beast slithering toward its prey.  The monster’s aim is emphatically malevolent, its mind filled with animosity. ‘Snake,’ on the other hand, does not arouse in … Continue reading →

Standing outside late at night, after lights have dimmed and eyes have adjusted to darkness, the brilliance of stars in a clear sky is overwhelming. It literally takes my breath away. Only then does the unfathomable scale of the universe become … Continue reading →

I can stare at the yellow lines on a desolate asphalt highway for hours, creating my own fantasy with nothing but wishes as fuel. Why can’t I, instead, imagine the joy of making intricate carvings in wood that’s hard as steel, using … Continue reading →

Life is not a cathedral; it is a cauldron. Despite promises that staying ‘in the moment’ brings tranquility, that pacific state carries emotional risks unmatched in their fury. Desire is a bastard with sharp teeth and claws.

Disappointments are inevitable, but not necessarily damaging. Failure to attain one’s goals or otherwise stumbling when an objective is in reach tends to build one’s humility. Humility is a characteristic that speaks volumes of a person’s experience in the world; … Continue reading →

Our misguided youth becomes misaligned adulthood. Our early flaws and foibles come to define who we are. We’re on a pathway that was destined, from the start, to reveal the mistakes that made us who we are. Old age is … Continue reading →

Hidden beneath tangled layers of memories modified by time and experience are clear, true recollections that remain pristine and unaltered. I believe those recollections, those brilliant reminiscences etched so deeply into the brain that neither time nor experience can change them, hold the … Continue reading →

Honesty is a dangerous trait when it accompanies primal passion and raw lust. Those might be the words of a character I write, or they could be mine. Where does one end and the other begin? Or, is it possible, they are one and … Continue reading →

If we had no television, no electric lights, no natural gas, no books, no internet, and no battery-powered devices awash in music, night-time would be a radically different experience from the way it is now. We’d watch the stars and, perhaps, … Continue reading →

The answer probably resides somewhere on the internet, but I have never looked for it there. Instead, I’ve just wondered—for quite some time, actually—when razors were invented. Before razors, people with beards like mine would have been pitied; they would … Continue reading →