March 16, 2024
Who is the most confident person you know?
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”)
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March 9, 2024
My middle name is actually Thomas. I chose to use “M Thomas” as a pen name out of respect for my father, who taught me how to write. As a professional communications writer, he was responsible for lots of public documents for the NYS DMV, including traffic safety reports, driver manuals, press releases from the Governor, all sorts of “my boss will feel the need to edit this, so I will deliberately leave behind something for him to do so as he doesn’t screw up the entire thing” document.
I may or may not have adopted this strategy in my own professional work (I certainly adopted the attitude…)
Another reason is because I had a baby brother named Thomas. He passed away before reaching five months old when I was not quite 11. It had a major impact on me as a child (and indeed as the adult and as the father I am).
I have no sons. It bothers me that I may be the last Thomas in our family. For a while, anyway.
February 29, 2024
Philosophy is always dangerous because it promotes the creation of new ideas.
Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune
February 19, 2024
It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma….The expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own speciality. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principle, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop.
Frank Herbert (Children of Dune)
February 4, 2024
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
I would say “yes.”
How?
Failure influences my perspective on life.
Successes influence my perspective on life.
Deaths influence my perspective on life.
Births influence my perspective on life.
Travel influences my perspective on life.
I would list the above five as “significant events” in life. But “the passage of time” is a little more vague.
Four years doesn’t seem like a long time to me now, but it sure did when I was 18.
Even six years doesn’t seem all that long now. But to my daughter who graduates from elementary school this March, six years is half her life.
My perspective on this question is that it’s the people in my life that have changed my perspective.
Even my daughter gets this. She wants to visit Australia, Canada, Singapore, and the US again because, as she put it, “a little piece of me is still there.”
But that’s just her perspective. Or is it?
January 20, 2024
That’s what we are, really; a constant turmoil between past and future, the mixing point of who we once were and who we are afraid we may become. We are constantly becoming — yet we never lose sight of the past, or if we do, we do so deliberately…but our past lies in wait, crouches and hides unbidden, always ready to pounce out from the mind’s darkness to set itself against future hopes and desires. Our previous selves eternally war with our future selves; it is the center of this conflict where we exist, and it is because of this inner turmoil we stay alive.
December 4, 2023
All the answers, like the questions, are in here. Life has no meaning, I give it meaning and by doing so, seek to define it. But Life cannot be trapped; it is not an animal or emotion so easily caged, sated, confused, or led. It has a Will all its own, and Its Will merely Is. No thinking, no deliberation or pontification. No grandeur, no sweeping generalizations.
Is.
November 20, 2023
[Context: While chaperoning students on overseas study in Perth, Western Australia, I badly burned my feet and back on a beach.]
It is difficult to walk, but today was slightly better than yesterday. Maybe tomorrow will be slightly better than today, and so on. One can only hope; if only life were like that, there would be an end to suffering.
November 19, 2023
Dear readers,
Sorry to have been absent for a couple of weeks.
Things just got busy at work and at home. And influenza really is strong this year, as predicted (I found out long ago that teenagers – especially guys – completely ignore suggestions regarding ways of avoiding illness due to an unwavering belief in their invulnerability).
I’ll try to make it up to you over the next couple of days.
In the meantime, here’s an Apple IIe showing the matrix (“all I see is blond…brunette…”).
October 28, 2023
There is a difference between being alone and feeling alone; being isolated and feeling isolated; being rejected and feeling rejected. Reality and emotive perception have no relation, except that which the mind projects. Eliminate the projection, and the reality allows itself to become revealed.
Only I can permit this reality to become revealed; only I can perceive, how can another remove this perception from me, if I cannot myself? No one can rely on me, if I do not rely on myself. No one can be helped by me, if I do not help myself.
No one can help me not feel alone, if I cannot do it myself. Being alone is a function of reality and circumstance; feeling alone is a function of myself, not dependent upon external stimuli. This feeling is one I must remove myself. I cannot be two, if I cannot be one.
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