Category: Blog (Page 2 of 13)

Any large-scale human cooperation — whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe — is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. … None of these things exist outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

People easily understand that “primitives” cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis.

from “sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari

Letter to the Editor: Tribune-Review — July 2021

The July 5 print edition’s front-page centerpiece featured an article with the headline “American resolve.” The subhead referred to the “determination of colonists,” and the article itself quoted the Hanna’s Town Resolves document, which cited the British “system of tyranny and oppression” and declared that all Americans needed to “resist and oppose” such a system.

True salvation is a state of freedom … from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging … and above all from past and future as a psychological need. … Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled … but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there. You “get” there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the moment you realize that you don’t need to seek God. So there is no only way to salvation: Any condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed. However, there is only one point of access: the Now. … There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment.

from the power of now by eckhart tolle

A Short Story

A moment later, Brukana stood atop an eastern crest of the massif under a stark blue sky, gazing down the steep slopes, past the belt of brutal wintry climate—the stretch of mountainous terrain boasting unendurable conditions that had proven impossible to breach for any of the curious adventurers from the southern tribes living far below.

A Short Story

A short walk later, Brukana again found herself at the center of a village near a well, this one compassed about by a wooden wall and likewise covered by a wooden roof—with the attached flagpole brandishing the vivid fuchsia banner she’d seen just a bit ago. As with the previous settlement, these villagers also bid her welcome, but most of them seemed guarded, although a few did greet her with warm smiles and the offer of food and drink. As before, Brukana sat with the villagers for the evening meal around a fire and close to the well, with not nearly as much talk and laughter here, clearly because of the stranger in their midst.

A Short Story

The explorer took slow steps forward while approaching the first village along the journey, not far from the seacoast. Such caution, though, simply served as a ruse to make it appear that the explorer knew nothing of this region’s inhabitants, because soon enough, many of the villagers flocked around the visitor at the edge of their settlement, offering greetings, smiles, flowers, food, and water.

“Thank you for your kindness,” the explorer said. “I am Brukana, daughter of the Livnek people in the far north, sent by my tribe to see these southern lands and offer our friendship.”

A Short Story

“Janie, you’re a big girl now, so sit down on your behind at the table, please.”

“Okay, Daddy … but why?”

A Short Story

“Oh, here it is—that picture I told you about. Can never remember where this phone stores photos I download. Anyway, that’s me as a boy when we moved here.”

“That’s you?”

This morning, an adage came to mind from the days of old when I would have labeled myself a Christian. It’s one I heard/read/saw many times:

I knew from school that the world was made of atoms and molecules, and we knew scientists were out there somewhere splitting and spinning and bouncing and breaking down matter to the smallest building blocks of the universe, but all I wanted to know was why there were building blocks in the first place and what was building with them. What wasn’t and wanted to be? What is this?

That was my big question: What is this? …

To me, it felt like we were all living in a snow globe and people in white lab coats were out there just counting snowflakes. I didn’t want data. I wanted to bask in the stomach-dropping, tingling sensation of unknowing and soak in something more basic—namely, “What the fuck are we doing in this snow globe?”

pete holmes in his book comedy sex god