03/31/2008 (Aging, Reflections on living, Social commentary)
In the April 7 issue of The New Yorker, Michael Kinsley reflects on aging, both his own and that of his generation. I’ve excerpted a small piece below.
We are born thinking that we’ll live forever. Then death becomes an intermittent reality, as grandparents and parents die, and tragedy of some kind removes one or two [...]
11/18/2007 (Health, Reflections on living)
What does growing older have in store? There is much literature on the subject. In researching through some of it I ran across 60 on Up by Lillian Rubin. It’s the best basic primer I’ve found on aging in this culture, aging as it is without the happy talk hype that characterizes much of what [...]
11/02/2007 (Reflections on living)
It happened all of a sudden. Of course, I started getting mail from the AARP when I turned 50, but I ignored that until, in search of some good deals, I joined at 60. But I wasn’t really a senior. Now I am.
It happened when I moved to Davis, CA a couple of weeks ago. [...]
09/24/2007 (Health, Reflections on living)
Below is a summary of some research on grief that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It modifies Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous five-step model of how we cope with loss. I’ve found it useful. The summary is from the The Atlantic magazine.
Researchers have long suspected that grief advances in stages, and [...]
09/15/2007 (Changing times, Reflections on living)
Mix together our inability to live together with openness and trust with computer technology and what do you get? Among other things, an explosion of juicy (and sad) divorces. Now the record of infidelity, and not the engagement diamond, is forever.
From the New York Times:
The age-old business of breaking up has taken a [...]
03/15/2007 (Changing times, Reflections on living)
A year ago I was midway through a three month stay in Singapore. I hated the climate and loved the people. It’s a mostly ethnic Chinese enclave with a British past surrounded by Malaysia and Indonesia. This morning there is an article in the International Herald Tribune on the relations of Singapore with its neighbors. [...]
03/01/2007 (Reflections on living, Social commentary)
As human beings we are always already committed. The question is not whether we are committed, but what we are committed to. In the ordinary, average, everyday, “mass,” self that the German philosopher Martin Heidegger characterized as “inauthentic,” we find embedded certain commitments that are easily recognizable when they are distinguished. I take the [...]
11/28/2006 (Reflections on living)
This is the second chapter from the Tao Te Ching I’ve posted. I read in it frequently and delight in it like visiting an old friend. And like conversations with an old friend each one is the same and, at the same time, new. These posts are not translations because I don’t know Chinese, but [...]
11/12/2006 (Reflections on living)
The haiku now have their own site. They belong to a related but distinct sensibility from that of the Zeit Guy take on living in interesting times. The haiku can now be found here.
11/02/2006 (Politics, Reflections on living)
A claim to the truth is a claim for obedience. For, after all, if I have the truth, why wouldn’t you give up what you say and obey (or believe or follow, etc.) me. Of course, if you claim to have the truth, then my truth is false; it is not the truth. And I [...]
10/26/2006 (Reflections on living)
Coming to grips with (understanding) the thinking of Humberto Maturana has always taken work because it challenges our deepest assumptions about the world, about human beings and, indeed, about “reality” itself. I recently ran across a book compiled from interviews with Maturana by a young professor of journalism and communication science.
It’s the most accessible introduction [...]
10/22/2006 (Reflections on living)
1) Where once I discarded broken pottery, I now keep a piece or two as reminders of delight and impermanence.
2) The chipped teapot still brews the same tea.
10/10/2006 (Politics, Reflections on living, Social commentary)
There is no end to getting even. One blow leads to the next.
10/08/2006 (Health, Reflections on living)
We are connected in many ways. Now, Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, tells us in his new book, Social Intelligence, that we are wired to connect.
Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets [...]
10/02/2006 (Reflections on living)
When I started studying with Fernando Flores, I came into contact with the work of Bert Dreyfus who teaches Philosophy at UC Berkeley. Bert is best known for his work on Heidegger and his critique of Artificial Intelligence. In the attached document, a transcription of an interview done as part of UCB’s Conversation with History [...]
09/28/2006 (Reflections on living)
thinning light, thinner hair,
autumn falling
on the world and me.
09/18/2006 (Reflections on living)
Today I add another digit to the count of my years, though in some ways, like many if not all of us, I seem to be 35 until I look in the mirror, a passing window on the street, or in the responses of much younger folks.
Splashing Bird
dreams, illusions, passing glories,
never knowing what’s next
the splashing [...]
09/14/2006 (Reflections on living)
In an earlier post I included a haiku I wrote some time ago - one that reappears to me from time to time:
at any moment
gone (perhaps)
splat like a fly.
When this not very original thought occurred to me, it arose in the context of my own mortality and to a lesser degree on the fundamental, root [...]
09/05/2006 (Reflections on living)
Recently, I met with a friend who wanted to talk about his reentry into the world of work. Like many in the Bay Area he had been “degigged” through a corporate reorganization. And like many, he had taken some time off staying at home and spending time with his children as his wife became the [...]