Behind ideas and actions lie belief systems; in times of war, philosophies have mortal consequences. Veterans spent so much of their life’s vigour and vim because they believed in ideals of duty, democracy, nation, and honour; in short, everything that makes our society free. Our liberty to study and flourish today exists because of these… Read more »
Somebody straight up asked me the other day how I would define myself in terms of my spiritual or political outlook on life. Was I a Christian, a socialist, an atheist, a Buddhist, a conservative, a liberal, some combination of any of the above, or what? I was bit taken aback by the question. I… Read more »
Ever wake up not feeling yourself? This can be a haunting reality as when a person says you’re not yourself today or that doesn’t seem like something you’d do. To have our stable wholeness questioned can leave us feeling off kilter or even defensive. These moments illustrate that our being (our ontology) is more fluid… Read more »
“No one here gets out alive” proclaimed a biography of Jim Morrison (Hopkins, Sugerman). No matter our personal age we must accept that the year is waning and the life of summer has fled. Autumnal chills with claustrophobic auspices may leave us feeling listless and trapped by the enforced hibernation of winter life. Even our… Read more »
A few years ago, I found myself walking along an empty beach on a remote stretch of the northern coast of British Columbia. The snow-capped peaks of Alaskan mountains seemed just a pebble’s throw away. To the west was the dim, spectral blue-grey haze of the Haida Gwaii islands. Beyond that, only Japan. But I… Read more »
Limpid thought and diluted meaning beckon us when we relax our critical faculties; our egos may inflate as we mow down course after course, yet it remains for us to be reflexive and consider what we’d hitherto discounted. Only fools rush in and when we draw conclusions based more on our disciplinary assumptions than on… Read more »
What if you awoke one day and were no longer yourself? Floating without memory in a swamp of stimuli, you’d be disengaged from the meaning of your actions and the coherence of your identity. Context and purpose having evaporated into a misty abyss, you might ask: What is going on? Writer’s block? A nightmare? A… Read more »
