The Coarsening of Society

I recall an episode from my past, perhaps 30 or so years ago, I was in a grocery store in the Los Angeles area. Standing near the front of the store, right near the check-out lines, I saw several employees of that store talking frantically with each other. There must have been two or three […]

Judgment is a very important topic, and a lot of people have strong feelings about it, mostly negative feelings. Two Aspects of Judgment One aspect of the word involves the notion of exercising good judgment, as in making smart decisions or assessing situations with wisdom and intelligence. That’s a positive aspect of judgment. The opposite […]

Abraham Lincoln once said “The better part of one’s life consists of his friends.”  Hard to argue with that. Sitting just the other day with a great friend (SE) whom I first met back in 1996, I was reminded that while truly great individuals are not common, they are out there. It’s up to me […]

Life is very daunting for many people. If we keep our ears and our eyes open, we may find that many people need some encouragement; some need empathy; others, sympathy. I vividly recall a conversation with a man a few short months ago. Almost the entire conversation involved him telling me of his various physical […]

One of the loveliest of pop songs from the 70s comes to us courtesy of Barbra Streisand. The song, written by Marvin Hamlisch, is titled “The Way We Were” and was used in the film of the same name starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. The lyrics are at once evocative of melancholy and nostalgia: […]

Having recently finished reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life I find myself reflecting on many of his thought-provoking themes. His book carries the subtitle An Antidote to Chaos, a theme that permeates many of its 368 pages of challenging prose. In pointing out that the scientific world view is a mere 500 years old, […]

Fans of Jimi Hendrix are sometimes astonished to learn that the popular Hendrix tune “All Along the Watchtower” is actually a cover tune of a song originally composed by Bob Dylan. For those not clear on what I mean by the term “cover,” periodically some artist or band will record a song that is a […]

There is a passage in the Hebrew Bible, located within what is referred to as the Wisdom Literature, that has always caught my attention. It’s found in the book of Proverbs, 23rd chapter, 7th verse. In the King James vernacular, it reads as follows: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” It […]

I recently posted something fairly innocuous on social media. I was commenting on the beauty and the virtue of a certain edifice of sacred significance, a place of profound meaning and enlightenment. There shouldn’t have been anything controversial about what I said. And yet, a certain small but deeply troubled demographic that lurks among us […]

It feels good to laugh. Laughter is a real “high” as endorphins are released into the bloodstream, providing an emotional sensation that is almost euphoric. Sometimes we get to laugh at ourselves, and it is good if we do so. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. Other times we get to laugh with others (notice […]