Archives for category: Logic & Reason
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Sitting With the Moment

July 2, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee on a sunny summer morning. I woke earlier than necessary, tackled a gardening task my Traveling Partner asked me to attend to before I left for the office. The commute was an ordinary enough sort of drive, with very little traffic and a lovely sunrise I’d happily have enjoyed just sitting and watching, if it were that sort of morning. (It isn’t; it’s a work day and I had an early call.) I sigh to myself, now, thinking of other sunrises, and other summer mornings.

The Fourth of July is just ahead of us on the calendar, and I find myself wondering… what are we even celebrating, with democracy going down in flames, ridiculous new heights of governmental cruelty being achieved, and authoritarianism on the rise in this once (mostly) democratic republic? Surely we’re not stupid and arrogant enough to think we’re celebrating our national independence? We can’t possibly still see ourselves as “the good guys” on the world stage (particularly after betraying multiple trusts, treaties, and allies)? It’s all rather grotesque, isn’t it? How did we get here? (I mean, critical thinking and rational contemplation will easily answer that question for you, but you may not like the answer. I know I don’t.) Do better, America – you so easily could. I’m honestly deeply disappointed, not only as a citizen, but also as a military veteran. I don’t have any easy answers, but I can see this is “not the way”. Nothing about the path we’re on is “making America great”.

I sigh to myself and let that shit go. Again. I look out the window on a lovely summer morning, and wish you well, today (each and all of you). I hope no one is coming for you and that you feel safe. I hope you experience moments of joy, both profound and simple, and often. I hope you are loved. I hope you are walking your own path, finding your own way, and satisfied with the journey you are making. I hope you’re getting somewhere in life – and that your successes are as you, yourself, define success. I hope you thrive and prosper. (And no, I don’t care about your immigration status, religion, gender, or the color of your skin – we’re all equally human, are we not?) I hope that if you are sick, you have adequate resources and access to necessary medical care. I hope that if you find yourself anxious that you also find hope and comfort. I hope gratitude is a larger part of your experience than resentment, and that your curiosity about the world around you dampens your anger over circumstances. I hope you find equity and that you are treated fairly in life. I hope you free yourself from poor decision-making and unverified assumptions. I hope you take a moment to enjoy simply being, now and then, and appreciate how precious each moment really is.

Human beings have so much capacity for love, joy, and compassion. We could do better than we often do, each of us, every day. I sit with that thought – I’m no angel. I’m not perfect. I struggle. I yearn. I fret over nonsense. I keep practicing; we become what we practice. (What are you practicing? Is that who you truly wish to be?)

I think about the things I’ve seen in life. The places I’ve been. As journeys go, this thing called “life” has lead me far and wide, down one path and then another, and there’s no knowing what is around the next bend – more practicing, more steps, and further to go, but… what else? Where does this path lead? I guess I’ll know once I get there, wherever “there” happens to be. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and embrace this very pleasant “now”. I know it’ll pass – moments always do. No telling what’s next, so it only makes sense to enjoy this, right here, for every second of this finite mortal life that can be enjoyed, eh?

My mind wanders to my garden, before returning to the workday in front of me. A long weekend ahead sounds nice, though I don’t prefer the summer heat, and genuinely don’t see what it is we should be celebrating on the 4th of July these days. My sigh breaks the stillness, again. My anxiety flares up in the background; the world is in chaos, and sometimes I feel as if I can’t breathe because of it. Existential dread is an ass-kicker. I take time for meditation to steady myself for another day. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Frustration, gratitude, joy, Logic & Reason, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

What We Choose Matters

June 28, 2025 //
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What we choose to consume matters. Fact is, all our choices matter to one degree or another. The results we get from any one choice over any other are reliably different. This is true of the food we eat, the books and periodicals we read, the services we use, the consumer goods we purchase, the platforms we subscribe to, the movies and videos we watch, and the politicians we elect. The tl;dr is that our choices matter, in our own life and in the world.

Businesses succeed or fail on their choices – and on ours as customers and consumers.

Societies rise, develop and fall based on the choices of chosen leaders enacting chosen policies.

We thrive or struggle based on our individual choices, and the choices of those around us.

It’s everything. From the choice of the food we put into our mouths (which could nurture or poison us), to the choice of who is best to lead us, every choice matters, every day, all the time. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready to make willful, informed, eyes-open choices and also to accept responsibility for the choices you have made?

Are you even making actual choices or are you tumbling randomly through life with your choices being dictated by the opinions of others, or based on the constant media bombardment of advertising and “infotainment”? Are you even thinking your own thoughts, or has your mind been taken over by ideological bullet points, loyalty to party platforms, and AI slop?

…Who even are you?

Dawn of a new day.

As I left town heading for a favorite trail, I saw the beginnings of a beautiful colorful sunrise. I knew I had “missed my moment”. My timing would give me brief views of spectacular color, but no opportunity to do more than watch it as I drove. I faced a lived moment of natural splendor that could be appreciated and enjoyed, but not preserved. That’s okay. Hell, that is the truth of most moments. I don’t fight it. I drive on drinking in the scenery and watching the sunrise evolve from the magenta and luminous pinks to bold bright orange, then fading to hues of peach, salmon, and mauve. Gorgeous. Words don’t capture the moment.

I’m driving. Progress. The finger I had surgery on is still bandaged, but I’m back to my usual pain management, and driving, which feels good. My Traveling Partner suggests I take it easy today. I embrace that suggestion enthusiastically; I’m not quite ready to do housework, with one hand still impaired. He suggested maybe I entertain myself with a drive to the coast after my walk, and I agree that sounds like a great idea. Choices, eh? Today, and every day.

Our perspective on the world is informed through our choices regarding where to turn our attention.

I breathe, exhale, and relax – and set off down the trail after watching the last splashes of the colorful sunrise fade to a new day. Reaching my halfway point, I sit awhile on a handy fence rail at the edge of a meadow. I watch the sunshine light up the oak trees in an adjacent grove. Beautiful. Also choices. I don’t think about every choice I make, in every moment. Some things seem to flow one moment to the next in some determinate “natural” way, but these too are choices, and they are the sort of choices that can easily become problematic; they are not carefully considered and thoughtful. Even some brief pause between actions to consider the options is probably better than being on “autopilot” or following some path as though I were on rails (like a train more than a hike). I think about that as I watch little birds living their moments. “How much do they choose?”, I wonder.

Thinking things over is healthy. Critical thinking skills are worth developing, practicing, and using. It’s quite freeing to make a willful well-considered choice. Having real agency is powerful. These are all practices, and they are choices.

Choices upon choices requiring choices about choices – so many choices! I brush off my jeans as I get to my feet, still thinking about choices and the power we have to choose our path, and even the sort of world we want to live in. Every choice matters, and it’s already time to make the next choice and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, weight loss secrets, Words

Neutrality Isn’t Neutral

June 23, 2025 //
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We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

Eli Weisel, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1986

There’s not a lot else to say about that, is there? There are definitely some topics, events, and circumstances that don’t leave room for “being neutral” or “staying out of it”, aren’t there? Genocide comes to mind as a good example. How can a rational, emotionally mature human being be for genocide, ever? Trying to rationalize heinous acts by redefining them doesn’t change the reality on the ground, does it? I’m sipping my coffee thinking about war, and genocide, and violence generally, yes and even the bullshit pettiness and poorly managed individual anger that can lead so many individual human beings to commit some of the most terrible acts imaginable against other human beings. We put so much effort into teaching children to read, to write, to do basic math – and so little into teaching critical thinking or emotional intelligence. There’s no requirement for human beings to be so cruel, greedy, cowardly, or dishonest – we work pretty fucking hard to develop those characteristics in our children, and to reinforce them in each other. I find that whole idea pretty grotesque, honestly. We could do better.

Are we standing on the precipice of WW3? Who decides whether global conflict has risen to that level? Who decides whether any particular conflict in the world in which one nation seems to be taking bold steps to completely wipe out the population of the other is clearly definable as a “genocide”? Why the hell would we ever try to rationalize, justify, or excuse such horrible acts? “They’re our ally, so what they’re doing is not genocide” is not a sound logical argument. I sigh to myself and sip my coffee. I keep expecting humanity to grow the fuck up and stop using conflict as a tool, if only because it is wasteful, costly, and lacks any really good return on investment. It’s unfortunate (even tragic) that human primates are such greedy fuckwits.

…I’m cranky over this shit, but there’s nothing much I can do about it beyond not being that, myself…

I’m back to the routine of work. It’s a Monday, and the day begins well in this corner of the world. Ordinary. But… I’m not oblivious to the goings on elsewhere. The pointless violent bullshit mayhem and nonsense going on elsewhere taints my pleasant morning and seeps into my awareness. I sigh again. My headache is manageable. My back pain isn’t noteworthy. The day is neither too hot nor too chilly. It’s not raining. There are no bombs dropping, here. Still, I’m cross about this shit, and I feel my chaos and damage loitering in the background. I was once a soldier on a battlefield. Another sigh. I don’t feel free to cry over it; I’ve got a week of work ahead of me, and only three days to do it. Busy life. Errands. Housekeeping. Making meals to feed my family. Tending my garden in spite of the fucking deer eating my damned roses (again). Putting away laundry. Catching up on work email. Staying on top of my task list and doing my damnedest not to forgot some important thing or another. It’s much. Right now it feels like “too much” and I am on the edge of fury – not because there’s anything wrong here, I just feel the weight of the world and my concerns about global conflict keep trying to spin up, causing my anxiety to flare up as latent anger.

I breathe, exhale, and relax – let all that go by an act of pure will, and try to begin again. I repeat this several times. It’s seems clear I’ll be having to work at managing this for awhile, since the asshats in Washington DC can’t seem to behave as rational adults. Fucking hell. War? Still? Really? I keep thinking we have what it takes to be better than this, then I remember the assorted bullies, grifters, and morons we’ve elected (time and again, honestly) – we have a long way to go. Stupid is just every-fucking-where. I’m so over it.

…But… I’m angry about it, not sad, not demoralized, not in a state of despair. I feel bitter. Cynical. Disappointed in humanity. Annoyed by greedy billionaires and politicians. Frustrated by our Dunning-Krueger government. And? It’s not something I can “fix” through some specific individual act. Hell, I can’t even prevent other seemingly intelligent people from supporting this craptacular boatload of bullshit. It’s all very irritating – and I am irritable as a result.

Breathe.

Exhale.

Relax.

Begin again. Don’t take anything personally. Do your own best. Practice non-attachment. Results may vary. We become what we practice. There are verbs involved.

I sip my coffee and let it go. Again. The clock is ticking. We could do better. I can at least do better myself through my own actions and choices. That’s going to have to be enough to get by on, maybe for awhile. I’m not telling you what to do or how to think, or even making suggestions. I’m just sitting with my thoughts on a Monday morning, annoyed with what a shit show the world happens to be presently, and practicing some self-soothing, as much as I reasonably can, and hoping that maybe it helps me get over my irritable mood. There’s really nothing going on right here, now, that would lead me to be so fucking cranky. I can do better.

So, I do. Again. Breathe, exhale, relax. Let it go. Repeat as needed.

The sun rose red on this new day. I don’t know that it means anything, but it was quite a spectacular sight as I drove in to the office. It’s a new day. A new opportunity to be the person I most want to be. I’ll have to keep practicing.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Frustration, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War

I Have Mine, You Have Yours

June 22, 2025 //
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The morning sky is a featureless homogeneous soft gray. It rained during the night, and feels like it might rain again today at some point. My walk was quiet, and I spent the time mostly in my own head. I’ve got my own opinions about world events, and I know you have yours. No doubt we each think we’re right (or at least justified) about the opinions we hold. The smarter we each actually are, the more likely we’re also aware of how wrong we could be, or sensitive to how nuanced circumstances truly are.

Being human is funny that way; we’re each having our own experience. Each walking our own path. Each of us making the journey on our own terms, except where we’ve yielded our decision making power to some Other. We’ve got our own opinions, formed and informed by our own experiences, and our own circumstances, colored by our individual pattern of biases, assumptions, and superstitions. We’ve got our own dreams, our own goals, our own disappointments and inner demons. We are individuals capable of critical thinking, when we choose to think critically (a choice which is quite separate from the ability). We create the world we live in directly through our choices and our actions. We are, as a species, uniquely creative and incredibly intelligent, while also being willfully stupid and terribly destructive. The scale of our ability to destroy is likely to be our undoing; we lack the wisdom to be cautious and to approach threats to our survival with care. A large portion of the whole of humanity is thoroughly committed to profit and personal gain even at the cost of humanity’s demise. Weird.

Oak trees in a meadow, the largest of them have been here longer than I have.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Warfare is stupid and pointlessly destructive. That’s my opinion. We could do better.

I sit with my thoughts and my opinions at the edge of this meadow, wishing human beings weren’t so completely shortsighted and criminally greedy. I sigh and try again to let that go. Fretting over things I can’t change about the decision making and opinions of other people is just about as pointless as things get. I definitely have better things to do with my time. Strange that people so eager to make war don’t seem aware that they could choose peace instead.

“Golden Opportunity” blooming on a rainy day.

I sit awhile wondering how it is we have not yet overcome the most basic flaws in our character as human primates and wonder why it is so many of us are so greedy for arbitrary representations of wealth. I hear the traffic in the distance. It’s a quiet morning, here. No bombs falling here. No drone attacks. No artillery fire. No landmines in these meadows. No trenches. No destruction. Americans tend to be some very NIMBY motherfuckers about such things; we fling our munitions at targets elsewhere in the world, and very few Americans have stared directly into the face of the God of War. To do so would force us to confront the cruelty, waste, and injustice of war, and to reckon with the body count. It is my opinion that most people who understand war and the cost in wasted resources and lost lives don’t so easily choose to inflict it on others. What do I even know about it, beyond my own experience, though? Maybe nothing.

I have seen war, up close and personal. I’d rather not go there again. Nothing is worth paying that price. Nothing. Humanity could do better. We make terrible choices.

A crow watching the tide come in.

It’s been a lovely week off. Now the weekend begins to end and the world is waiting. What next? Where does this path lead? Each moment is a blank page – what story will you write? What choices will you make? How will you (or I) make the world a better place for every creature who makes this muddy rock hurtling through space their home? We could… There are verbs involved, and our results will vary. I promise you one thing; war is not the way.

I sigh to myself. You can lead a human being to knowledge but you cannot make them think.

I get to my feet and look down the trail. Moments are fleeting. It’s a good time to begin again. I’ll do my best to live well, to embrace joy, and encourage others, and to refrain from acts of destruction. I can, if nothing else, live my values authentically and avoid violence. I may not change the world for the better in any obvious way, but I can surely avoid making shit worse.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, breathe, Despair, Free Will, grief, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War

The What and The Where

June 14, 2025 //
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I spent my walk this morning mostly thinking about my upcoming camping trip, packing the car in my head. Take this? Take that? What about this piece of gear instead of that one? Can I carry all of this down the trail to my campsite? How many trips will it take to make that work?

… My reserved site is 1/2 mile from the parking. lol I’m 62, not as fit as I’d like to be, and I’ve got some mobility limitations that will require me to walk the trail with my cane in one hand, reducing the amount of gear I can realistically carry in any single trip down that trail reliably…

It’s like an elaborate puzzle every time I camp. New location, new site, new scenario. I noticed my face hurting as I walked with my thoughts. It hurt from smiling so hard. I look forward to the planning puzzle almost as much as I look forward to the actual camping. 😂

The cloudy cool morning reminds me to pack a cold weather layer in case of cooler than forecasted weather.

I go over my list in my head again, testing my memory for the details and trying to catch myself overlooking an important piece of gear. I laugh off items I have reliably packed in the past, and reliably never needed. As the years wear on, I am more mindful of my physical limitations and inclined to pack with greater care, and also to avoid over-packing; I don’t need to bring what I know I can’t carry.

… Knowledge is having a detailed awareness of the gear available to me. Wisdom is not taking a heavy solar powered refrigerator on a trip that requires a long walk to the campsite. 😆 …

I’m not sharing these thoughts because you need them for a camping trip. It’s more that the basic “lessons” apply to other situations that are similar in some way. There’s a metaphor buried in this casual sharing. Real life can get really real, and being prepared is helpful. Being over prepared potentially not so much, it could just be more to carry, and a waste of resources or intention. How we visualize upcoming events can be a helpful means of preparing, or an impediment that sets us up for failure by inflating our sense of capacity and ability, or by blowing our anxiety and our concerns out of proportion to the anticipated events. I try to be realistic, but also very positive and encouraging. I think of favorite anime characters overcoming great obstacles and growing stronger and seek to do so myself on a somewhat smaller (less fantastical) scale in my own life.

I grin to myself as I change my boots for soft shoes after my walk. Comfort matters, too. Reality is not what we remember, nor what we imagine; it is what it is. I laugh at myself; however skillful my planning and preparation for a camping trip is, I nearly always forget something. All this planning ideally results in whatever I end up forgetting having very little importance. 😂 That’s a great outcome! I went out once having forgotten my bee sting kit (and there were bees) and my coffee (and omg are you fucking kidding me??) and ended my trip early over it. No coffee?! No camping. Non-negotiable, I know my limits. LOL

I look out across the meadow. Nice morning. I look over my shopping list, inhale, exhale, and relax, sighing deeply. Contentment feels good. Still, the clock is ticking, and it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being
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