Category: Bits and Pieces

“We can only improve ourselves in times such as these by walking backwards, by discord not by harmony, by being different not by being like.” Socrates described himself as both a midwife to ideas and as a gadfly, a pest who prevented people from latching too easily to lazy thoughts. In our times, people are…

“Every day I argue myself out of that childish and unkindly humour which makes us desire that our own ills should arouse compassion and mournful thoughts in those we love. So as to bring on their tears we exaggerate our misfortunes beyond all measure.” We owe ourselves gratitude and perspective. Our own troubles rarely amount…

“We must lend ourselves to others but give ourselves to ourselves alone.” This does not mean to be miserly with your time, money and attention. Rather, do not give anyone the power to upset your peace of mind. Do not be an island onto yourself, but let your fortune be counted on a personal scale….

“We engender many, or even all, of this world’s abuses by teaching people to fear admitting ignorance and requiring them to accept unrefutable claims. Everything is proclaimed by injunction and assertion.” Why are we so uncomfortable with doubt? The things we proclaim most confidently are often done so more to convince ourselves than anyone else….

“We are richer than we think, each one of us. Yet we are schooled for borrowing and begging! We are trained to make more use of other men’s goods than of our own.” We become complex prisms, always refracting other people’s thoughts and desires. There are two ways to assemble those “bits and pieces.” We…

“Our duty is to bring order to our morals not to the materials for a book: not to win provinces in battle but order and tranquillity for the conduct of our life. Our most great and glorious achievement is to live our life fittingly.” Montaigne’s book ranges wildly back and forth from the political to…

”All forms of greatness are not brought low uniquely by a fall: some there are which allow you to stoop low without falling.” There are some positions to which we aspire purely because we are expected to always show forward progress, but in retrospect, the promotion was hardly worth the trouble. And then these positions…

”We already have one foot in the grave yet our tastes and our pursuits are always just being born.” When true, this is good. There is nothing more toxic to any culture than old men stuck in old ideas. Older people with vigorous minds and endless curiosity are some of the most valuable humans. They…

“The wise men say that to judge a man properly, we must principally look at his routine activities and surprise him in his everyday dress.” In other words, do not judge someone by their most heroic moments, judge them by their ordinary days, the way they attend to their duties, and the habits they form….

“Once things have happened we can find some interpretation of them which turns them into prophecies.” Portents abound in life, but are usually seen in retrospect. The great American government purge underway is the rare example of one almost too clear for its own good. The technologists are eliminating the human civil service workforce to…

“I consider some men, particularly among the Ancients, to be way above me and even though I clearly realize that I am powerless to follow them on my feet I do not give up following them with my eyes and judging the principles which raise them thus aloft.” What Montaigne does not quite admit is…

”Anger is a passion which delights in itself and fawns on itself.” Anger comes in degrees. There is simple annoyance, a disturbance that things are not turning out as expected, without any particular blame applied. Then there is anger, an emotion pointing at injustice, a signal that someone or something has acted in an intentionally…

“Nothing stops us from behaving properly even when among mutual enemies – nor loyally either. Comport yourself among them not with an equal good-will (for good-will can allow of varying degrees) but at least with a temperate one, so that you do not become so involved with one of those mutual enemies that he can…

”Caesar’s pursuit of pleasure never made him steal one single minute, never deflected him one inch, from any opportunity which was offered him to aggrandize himself.” Unfortunate that he did not get distracted by that pleasure. We criticize the powerful for their appetites and abuses and it it right to defend anyone harmed by such….

“Our main talent lies in knowing how to adapt ourselves to a variety of customs. To keep ourselves bound by the bonds of necessity to one single way of life is to be, but not to live. Souls are most beautiful when they show most variety and flexibility.” I cannot improve on this thought. We…

Does it matter how Julius Caesar waged war? Is it historically important if he actually invented the dish coq au vin just to demonstrate what a Roman army could make out of an emaciated chicken? Do we need to confirm if he actually said Et tu Brute? Historical figures inevitably fall into lore. Our times…

“Whoever makes Love lose the communication and service of poetry will disarm him of his best weapons.” How much energy do we expend quarreling with love? If the body has certainty, the mind brings its measures of doubt. The greatest conflicts surround beauty itself, as if it could be brought to reason and made to…

“Let those widows who wept when they were alive laugh outwardly and inwardly once they are dead.” Or, to put it more bluntly, let the women who suffered under tyrannical husbands enjoy their demise. This thought could stand to be even more macabre, inviting those who suffered to hurry along the process however necessary. Someone…

“Greeks were deeply aware of the ways in which our successes and our failures—indeed, our very actions themselves—are never completely under our control. They were constantly sensitive to, amazed by, and grateful for those actions that he cannot perform on one’s own simply by trying harder.” There were episodes in my life when I did…

“Health is precious. It is the only thing to the pursuit of which it is truly worth devoting not only our time but our sweat, toil, goods and life itself.” Health has always been controversial. There has always been a difficult balance between the particular and universal, between folk remedies and expert opinion. Over time,…

“To found the reward for virtuous actions on the approval of others is to choose too uncertain and shaky a foundation.” We are discovering that public sentiment cannot hold the institutions of democratic order in place, that they can be distorted and turned against those institutions. Plato knew of democracy’s instability and said it was…

“If when in love your passion is too powerful, dissipate it, they say. And they say truly: I have often usefully made the assay. Break it down into a variety of desires, one of which may rule as master if you like, but enfeeble it and delay it by subdividing it and diverting it, lest…

”What a renewal that would have been, what a restoration of the fabric of this world, if the first examples of our behaviour which were set before that new world had summoned those peoples to be amazed by our virtue and to imitate it, and had created between them and us a brotherly fellowship and…

To be clumsy is to be all thumbs. Opposable thumbs allow us to grasp and manipulate objects. Approval can be expressed in thumbs up or down. Most chat programs now have virtual thumbs to indicate the same. Hitchhikers, when they were culturally prevalent, put out their thumbs to procure rides. Children suck their thumbs. There…

For Michel de Montaigne, having an essay about cowardice and another about cruelty was apparently not enough, he also needed one where he declared cowardice to be the mother of all cruelty. His argument was that sentimental affectation, the kind of personality that would make someone weep at the most maudlin music or story, also…

There was a meme a few years ago that suggested men think about the Roman Empire with absurd frequency. Just like I rarely think of death, so too I almost never think about Rome. My thoughts turn to ancient Greece and Athens far more often, but even that doesn’t add up to much. I didn’t…

Part of fatherhood is determining whether one of my sons is telling the truth anytime he says that he’s too sick to attend school. The pandemic scrambled the way we think about such things and many parents tend to take any request for a sick day at face value. But all people, children especially, have…

Our minds tangle themselves up with hard choices. We can face situations where the tossed coin rests on its side, refusing to budge with an answer. The body could choose for us in these moments anyway and the brain will later give a rationale for the random selection. Pyrrhonists consider these analyses to dodge the…

That difficulty increases desire is itself a difficult truth. By embracing this thought, do we admit that a subject’s bitterness also makes it appealing? Or maybe it’s not just the flavor of our experiences, but also our understanding. Difficulty can also mean mystery. If our aim in life was pure and simple joy, we would…

“We are all hollow and empty: it is not with wind and spoken sounds that we have to fill ourselves: to restore ourselves we need a substance more solid.” If we are nothing more than ever changing bits and pieces, if we lack a solid being that can be understood and fully described, then what…

“Whatever of beauty I do find in others I am most ready to praise and to value it.” This builds upon the thoughts on glory. If we select our own truth, our own hopeless causes in life, so too do we select our own beauty. Nothing could be more irrelevant and less open to serious…

”There is no beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man.” It is quite a task to believe in the humanitarian project, knowing what humans are capable of being. We grow up believing that might does not equal right, that we are protected by Constitutions and laws. And then one…

“Profound joy has more seriousness than gaiety about it; extreme and full contentment, more soberness than sprightliness.” Then perhaps we are entering an age of profound joy, at least for those who are aware of it and who have empathy for the suffering. We had our opportunity to turn back and see this all as…

Procrastination is our least understood drive. The sweetness of any act requires some bitter sorrow, disappointment or self doubt. We do not put off because we lack will or drive. We put off to make the other things we do that much more meaningful. The anxiety you feel when you take a day off is…

”When we take pleasure in vice, there is born in our conscience an opposite displeasure, which tortures us, sleeping and waking, with many painful thoughts.” For some this displeasure awakes without any actual vice taking place, the mere hint of vice is enough to awaken the ghosts of guilt and shame. And then there are…

”We feel ourselves more moved by the skippings and jumpings and babyish tricks of our children than by their activities when they are fully formed, as though we had loved them not as human beings but only as playthings or as pet monkeys.” It is much easier to love your children when they haven’t yet…

“The vile and thoroughly enervating practice of our noblemen today is never to don their armour until the very last second when absolutely necessary, and to throw it off as soon as there is the slightest sign of the danger being past. This results in chaos.” At least the noblemen of the late renaissance donned…

“I want them to flick Plutarch’s nose in mistake for mine and to scald themselves by insulting the Seneca in me. I have to hide my weakness beneath those great reputations.” This appears to be a difference in my project. When I quote someone else, it is usually to acknowledge a thought that never occurred…

”It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul’s interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other.” While this is true, it is also the case that people can carry on for a surprisingly long time…

”What I chiefly portray is my cogitations, a shapeless subject that does not lend itself to expression in actions. It is all I can do to couch my thoughts in this airy medium of words.” The things that we cannot capture in actions we must convert into expressions. This might bend towards vanity and self…

“The ultimate degree of treating death courageously, and the most natural one, is to face it not only without amazement but without worry, extending the ordinary course of your life right into death.” I have to admit, I never think about death unless writers force it upon me. While I attend to my health carefully,…

”We do not pick out for praise a man who takes trouble over the education of his children, since however right that is it is not unusual, no more than we pick out a tall tree in a forest where all the trees are tall.” And maybe we should, says the man dealing with children…

Communications no longer has time limits or friction. Everyone can share anything immediately with everyone. It’s amusing, and somewhat awe inspiring, to consider that getting message to someone once involved riding horses many days at breakneck speed. We have something called horsepower to measure the torque of engines, perhaps we need something similar to keep…

“I am not afraid to admit that my nature is so tender, so childish, that I cannot well refuse my dog the play he offers me or asks of me outside the proper time.” Same. It can be a problem at times. My dog feels like my emotional second half and he manipulates me so…

“Ailing political systems often display a similar surplus, and they usually resort to various types of purges to address it. Sometimes, to take the load off the country, a great multitude of families are given leave to seek better conditions elsewhere, to some other nation’s detriment.” Creating refugees is not a new tactic, and it…

“It is of the nature of our senses to be misled and deceived. Because they do not know what being is, they take ‘appears’ to be for ‘is.’” This appearance manifests in fleeting states; being is something permanent, unchanging. We are ever changing, always reformulating our souls based on actions and rationalizations of them.  This…

We judge others’ deaths harshly at times. I remember quite well when Kurt Cobain died of suicide. The Gen X reaction was mostly sorrowful, but there were pockets of anger against him for taking his own life. This struck me as cruel at the time and my opinion has only hardened over the years. Tolstoy…

When we first sense that something is off but we can’t put words to it, we say that it doesn’t smell right. Scent is a warning. It can also be an enticement. For food, the aroma is essential. Would coffee hold any power without it? My dog is little more than a nose and a…

I do not understand the concept of prayer. If you believe in an all powerful, holy deity, aren’t your beliefs and feelings an open book? How are human words something to impress and show appreciation? Words exist so human beings can communicate with one another and are imperfect expressions of our deepest beliefs. Shouldn’t we…

The oldest I felt in life was after my twin boys had reached the age of one. It felt like I did not sleep the entire year, and the exhaustion was overwhelming. But now it is more than 16 years later and I feel quite a bit younger. In fact, I feel little different than…

”Living is slavery if the freedom to die is wanting.” Having the freedom to do something should not be equated with a drive or necessity to do so. If we are primarily concerned with the creation of our souls, nothing builds a stronger foundation than choosing against the freedoms accorded and the wishes conceived. Having…

”Great minds are more settled and see things more clearly: they form another category of good believers; by long and reverent research they penetrate through to a deeper, darker light of Scripture and know the sacred and mysterious secret of our ecclesiastical polity.” It has taken me time to appreciate this thought fully. I have…

”We are entirely made up of bits and pieces, woven together so diversely and so shapelessly that each one of them pulls its own way at every moment. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and other people.” I will not pretend to have the talent or…

Intoxication brought on by alcohol does not interest me much. But I am fascinated by other types of intoxication. We can feel drunk in our thoughts and desires. A simple compliment might have us swimming in a flood of feeling. That feeling we describe as love is such an intoxication, and it can be among…

We never get what we want. It seems like a strange concept when wants are turned into things we can purchase. The thing you want is satisfactory only for a short time if at all. The trip you had to take can be highly memorable, but even then it rarely matches the expectations that incited…

Returning to the thoughts about attention, we no longer have role models and heroes in our culture, just celebrities. It does not matter how a celebrity achieves fame. Often bad acts are even more valuable to the task at hand than virtuous ones. Virtuous people have lovelier funerals but less celebrated lives. There has never…

We judge people by all the measures that matter least about them — the name of their school, but nothing about what they made of their education and whether it inspired them to continue learning; the size and location of their house instead of whether they live according to their means; artists by the receipts…

“One and the same mind should, for a period of some fifteen or twenty years, hold with such unbelievable and frivolous inconstancy two or three opinions which are not merely divergent but incompatible.” Here’s one for me: while I am not a neat freak in my household and am generally tolerant of the various ways…

We can all use a good garage sale from time to time. Sometimes we need to take out some things we do not need and give them another home. Other times we should drag out the values that no longer suit us and let them drift away. It was once common to have laws preventing…

Sleep demands a comforted body, a quieted mind and enough fatigue to readily surrender consciousness. I admit that, as much as I enjoy movies, I have fallen asleep in many of my favorites. I‘ve dozed for at least a few minutes every time I’ve watched “Sans Soleil.” I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Chris…

If you’re going to enter into a war, fight it to win and to the finish. This is an easy, simple rule to apply to conflict. But it’s a barbaric thought in an age of hypersonic missiles and thermonuclear devices. We are rapidly leaving the age of “good wars,” those fought with the best intentions….

Few people on earth forget names as readily as I do. For me to remember anyone’s name, I need to say it regularly and ideally see it printed somewhere. I will put myself in the habit of saying hello and thanking people by name day after day purely to force myself to keep a name…

”Fortune does not examine causes nor follow merit but meanders through everything without distinction.” It is interesting to come across wisdom like this amid thoughts about making reasoned decisions, weighing arguments carefully and keeping an open mind. By all means, do everything you can to be rational in your decision making. But also don’t be…

There was a time when people were aware of warhorses. They knew the name and type of steed for the great warriors in history. The equivalent today might be knowing military weaponry well, so you can tell the difference between an F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Hornet. Such arcane knowledge is the province of young…

”I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless.” And yet our inanity can do so much evil harm. How many people become expert in one…

How much of our consciousness is formed in our arts? If you wish to find them, there are plenty of novels and films that are contemplative in nature, some are little more than conversations. But those are niche products. Show, don’t tell, is the mantra of cinema. Audiences wish to be dropped into the action…

Occam’s Razor tells us that the simplest solution is often the best, and in science, parsimony means to rule out the simple, logical solutions first before moving on to the complicated. The word also means to be miserly. How interesting that the two are merging in this historical moment. Simplistic cost cutting moves are being…

We wear clothing for warmth and for modesty. We wear it to distract eyes and to guide them. We make it a social marker, but also a symbol of changing times. It is a necessity, but also, in forms, our most lavish luxury. Whole industries are devoted to people putting clothing on, and also to…

“I can conceive and believe that there are thousands of different ways of living and, contrary to most men, I more readily acknowledge our differences than our similarities.” People take many forms and live their lives in drastically different ways. Given this, how can virtue be defined? If there is no human nature, no common…

“Kinship, old acquaintance, and friendship seize our imagination and get it passionately involved for the moment, according to their character; but the turn is so quick that it escapes us.” These souls that we create are just as swayed by our moods and passions as our bodies. We live in an age of endless distraction,…

“Let us make our happiness depend on ourselves,” is a fine thought. In my experience, when the people I love experience setbacks and disappointments, it hurts more than when I am targeted. I have built a lifetime of resilience and know how to recover. But nothing is more painful than watching a child feel hurt…

Should we value eloquence as highly as we do? If it is found in someone who has not achieved something significant, then it is a parlor trick and distraction. If it lies with a truly worthy person, acts alone should do the speaking. This, however, may be asking too much of people. We have been…

Moderation can be the cruelest form of zealotry. Ancient philosophers, especially the stoics, believed that we should temper all emotions, never enjoying anything too much, never risking to get swept away by feeling. But what happens when moderation takes command, when what is safest and most acceptable assumes charge? Feelings not permitted to grace our…

“Every man calls barbarous anything he’s not accustomed to.” We are fortunate that this is not true for everyone, that there are people who look to other cultures with curiosity and make no assumption that their own is superior. The strangest people for me are those who assume their culture is best, but have endless…

There have been moments in the last 10 years when I had to stop what I was doing and admit that I no longer understood the world I was living in. It may be that we never really know what is going on in our world, that there are forces beyond our control shaping our…

We return to the topic of immoderate moderation. To early philosophers, the pursuit of virtue was so complete that if a person could not sublimate pleasures to a more noble cause, death was considered a fair option. What nobility lies in such death? Why should the body suffer for a mind unable to work through…

And now we are back to the question of luck. The lucky are always given permission to describe how they willed their treasured existence into being. The unlucky are never given equal space. They are attacked for their work ethic, intelligence, family structure, whatever argument at hand makes the average citizen comfortable not identifying with…

The next generation rarely appreciates what the previous brought forth. The torrent of business ideas that my father revealed but never carried out might sound brilliant if explained to my children, just like how I loved my grandfather’s endless chattering about things he heard on his short wave radio, talk that bored my father to…

If we put ourselves in the minds of Pyrrhonists, those skeptics who believed we find our greatest peace of mind when opinions seem to weigh evenly and we are left withholding judgment altogether, we are still left with decisions. This is why the dogmatic often win contests to lead, their simple thoughts always bend toward…

Teaching children philosophy might be a route to making them into noble, virtuous adults with critical thinking skills. But which philosophy? Our philosophy doesn’t use the same grammar. Some are analytic, some are called continental, but none are easily at the reach of school children. We could begin a tour of philosophy’s route from Athens…

If you declare something impossible, you are also judging that you have considered every possible factor. You have walled off the things you cannot see. You have dismissed all supernatural outcomes. You are trusting that you have reasoned not just correctly, but perfectly. There is no guesswork involved, you have determined truth. How many instances…

Do our souls ever become plural? Our clichés about romance and marriage tell us that this is the aim of such a bond. But in marriage, the aim is a cocktail, a pleasing mixture of qualities that work together and can be repeated time and again. Something different happens in fusion. The energy of the…

How often our bodies betray us. Or perhaps they never do, rather our minds have ideas, theories and steely insistences that our bodies can’t abide. As much as we insist that we avert our eyes, keep a stiff upper lip or never let them see you sweat, the body knows who we fear, who we…

One does not have to agree with the capitalist credo of ‘greed is good’ to find value in covetous desire. The human drive to obtain can also apply to holding dear. We do not have to value the new and disposable. We can have greed for nature, beauty, friendship and community. People who live by…

Given the ease of finding knowledge, and now processing knowledge, why teach children things to memorize? Once they know how to read and can understand basic math, should the balance of education consist of more things stuffed into their heads, things they could readily look up and have packaged for them without effort? There is…

Life includes much servitude, some of it by choice, the rest by different forms of demand. We are born in servitude, we must obey our parents to survive. Many religions hold that we remain there for a lifetime, always living in glory of a deity. The worst circumstance is to be born in service to…

How strange the way customs rise and reshape us. Some years feel like being carried away in an undertow, the world no longer recognizable and drifting away. Others are like long midday naps. We wake up disoriented, unsure of time and place, disheveled. Was the slumber five minutes or five hours? People of power burn…

We create our souls. Parts of them are formed in childhood, built on the foundation of religion and values of parents. Even those ancient segments vary across a lifetime, shifting based on decisions. Souls are a reflection of the things we hold dear and the people we love best. It’s no surprise that food and…

In the face of fear, choices are perilous. Standing firm seems courageous, but could lead to destructive conflict. Very often, retreat feels cowardly. But it can also be gracious and just. We all live to fight on. Our desires arise in us as they appear, but can be satisfied only in their own time. We…

Appointees to public roles have dual loyalties. They are beholden to the leader who appointed them, but they also owe allegiance to the public trust. Some leaders don’t believe this and seek out ministers who will show blind loyalty. They attract ambition with a notable lack of character or competence. Such leaders never return this…

We stand at ceremony out of respect, not for the person, but the office. But why do we follow social customs? Do we oblige habit? Do we assume the wisdom of tradition? Do we simply wish not to stand out? Respect has value. But why do we lack self respect? Why do we look the…

There are circumstances where retreat is not sufficient. Surrender is sometimes not just appropriate, but the only rational option. There’s no valor in hopeless contest, just fuel for obsession. There were times when soldiers could be sentenced to death for carrying on a fight for a fort long lost. Our culture is less clear about…

Cowardice is badly misunderstood. People act to their capabilities. Those who do the things we call heroic often just follow instinct, they almost never plan an action based on valor. It can be cowardly to go to war and brave to resist it. Likewise, it can be brave to resist your heart when it pushes…

Why are people so fearful? Why do they feel it necessary to move far away from everyone who doesn’t look like them? Why do they buy guns? Why buy SUVs the size of armored personnel carriers? Fear is so prevalent in our culture that maybe the better question is why I lack the common forms…

There comes a point in every life when the mask must drop. We all wear them, nobody is the same person in all circumstances and with all people. It would be insanity to behave exactly the same way with your children as with business clients. Some people wear more masks than others. They watch, listen…

Is it possible to make a practice of death? We experience it in small ways across our lives. Nothing feels more like death than the end of a love affair. The fleeting joys and comfort remind us that all will wither with time, even those things we label with death until parting. Children feel this…

We are all familiar with lashing out. You stub your toe and bring your fist down on the table in revenge. Anger always wishes a transfer, a reason for action, a display to disprove our victimhood. Desire is also powerful, but more subtle and persistent. Its demands aren’t always immediate, but linger and refuse to…

Trust only matters when there is danger. Of course we trust when there are no stakes, no concerns and no fears. Our cause for cloaking, hedging, shading and confounding is risk. To be dishonest is to live in constant fear, but also persistent danger. We cannot allay fears without small, precarious first steps. But without…

Risk is not to be taken for granted. Vulnerability is scary and sometimes perilous. Who hasn’t felt as if dangling at times in life, left out on a branch, clutching for dear life as you carefully crawl back to safety? Safety is smart. To be safe is to protect what you have, to value life…

How can death speak for us? Death can give voice to loved ones and admirers. It can call out eloquence; it can welcome lament. But death itself is silent. It ends all means of communication. No more words, no more nods, no more raised eyebrows or furtive glances. To say is to breathe life. As…

How does a mind become ashamed of itself? Shame is the most difficult of emotions. It serves an important social purpose. But it can also punish us severely with guilt for harms not afflicted. Truth can be embarrassing, but it is still truth. One can be ashamed of the most beautiful thoughts and feelings. Self…

Lying is an art, an act of self creation. We should be impressed with the liar for the suppleness of thought required to spin a believable lie and for the clear memory necessary to hold multiple fictions at once. Liars damage themselves most of all. Lies disconnect the liar from reality and hold people at…

I am rarely caught off guard for a word. I account for this skill from whatever place also made me, in a past form, an effective liar. Creative fearlessness makes words flow easily. As one embraces honesty, however, free flowing words must become more careful. Somehow I have held onto the flow while letting go…

Emotions, desires and sentiments are said to carry us away from the here and now, away from ourselves, unmooring us from our foundations. I experience my feelings differently. My sentiments expose the missing pieces, the echoing void. John Lennon in “Strawberry Fields Forever” sang “No one I think is my tree. I mean it must…

Socrates, the great rational gadfly and midwife, did not reach every conclusion by his own method. He had an inner something, called in places his daimonion, that held him back from taking risky actions. This daimonion never prompted Socrates to go forth, only to heed caution. The great rationalist had a spirit, the nature of…

How do I find myself back here again? Am I searching for something not yet discovered? Is it an evil demon who forces me to click on endlessly, always beginning anew, always returning here. I have concerned myself over time to figuring out my readers as much as I figure out myself along this journey….

There are different types of sadness. There is one that can linger in bittersweet disappointment for long periods, never demanding much of me, but always alerting me to its presence. But there is another type of sadness that bears no resemblance. I can feel its presence in my head. It sucks up hope and replaces…