“A stone, because of its makeup, will return to earth if you throw it up in the air. Likewise, the more one pushes the intelligent person away from the life he was born for, the more he inclines towards it.” – Musonius Rufus What of our makeup? Are we drawn towards our inclinations, like gravity…
“Trend is not destiny.” – Shane Parrish Trends. Sometimes they seem so laughably predictable, other times so completely unreliable. Anyone paying attention saw the events of January 6th unfolding, trending towards violence. We all watched COVID-19 infection rates trend alarmingly upward a year ago, quickly turning our growing interest into immediate action. There’s clearly a…
Some ideas grab you and you can’t put them down until they’re finished, and then you sense them glowing in the fibers of your being like the smell of ozone after an electrical storm. Sparks of imagination fire off in your brain like lightning in a summer storm. Inevitably in writing I get so excited…
“I wonder if I should have a change — a year in Europe this time — something new, something better, perhaps. A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no…
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose” – Dolly Parton “Do it on purpose and you’ll find out who you are.” – Seth Godin Ten days seems a short time to accomplish much of anything, and the last ten days have whirled by in a flurry of moments great and small. But…
“If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work… ‘All the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours …’ A word grows to a thought — a thought to an idea — an idea to an act….
Take a tour of a Scottish distillery and you’ll see the black stains on the sides of buildings and wonder. This is the residual build-up from centuries of evaporation of the angel’s share, the percentage of scotch that evaporates through the casks to go where it will. I’ve often thought of this evaporation process and…
The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorage is quicksand. This onward trick of nature is too strong for us: Pero si muove. When at night I look at the moon and stars, I seem stationary, and they to hurry….
I’m not a surfer, but I imagine them bobbing about in the swells, deciding which wave feels like the best for an epic ride to the beach. On some mornings writing feels a bit like that, with a series of false starts and bits of poetry and verse toyed with then put aside for another…
What good is livin’ a life you’ve been givenIf all you do is stand in one place – Lord Huron, Ends of the Earth If snow transforms the landscape, then a walk in that snowy terrain transforms the winter walker. Add a new path and suddenly you’re seeing the world entirely differently than you had…
