These short reflections and insights range in length from twitter-length to short essays. They’re free, so what’ve you got to lose but a few moments?
I’ve had some pretty dirty jobs in my life. There was that summer working in the back of a butcher shop, bagging chickens, separating necks from hearts and livers. Try doing that hungover during a heatwave at 7 every morning. There was that time I worked as a grease monkey cleaning up a big mechanics’ […]
As human beings, we really don’t understand death, either its transformative power or its nonfinal nature. When I say that death has a transformative power, I’m referring to that aspect of death – to that kind of death – which is not the end of the body. Rather, it is the death we each need […]
In your life, out of all the moments and experiences, of all your deeds and perceived sins, you’re the only one who sees it all. You’re the only one who’s been there for everything, to witness every moment of it. Your prime relationship is, therefore, always with yourself. I don’t mean this in a narcissistic […]
I think there is something to learn from the Shakers. They were a religious sect back in the 19th Century known for producing chairs that it’s said will last a thousand years. Yet none of the craftspeople took credit for their work. They believed that the act itself was its own reward, and invested themselves […]
I went out for a hike with my good friend, Ben. Before the lockdown, we’d go out every Sunday up Horse Gulch or down the Animas River or even just stroll through Durango, addressing and solving the problems of the world. Today’s hike was a little more significant for me. I was sticking my toe […]
People sometimes confuse anger with resentment. Anger, we all know. In acting, they say that anger’s the easiest emotion to portray. In life, it’s the safest emotion to feel.
Anger is energy. We can use it to motivate us. It can be justified, but most anger – which always feels justified – really isn’t. They call […]
We can’t really know what love is until we love ourselves. We won’t let that love out until we let that same love in for ourselves. It’s the same love, whether it seems to come in from a lover or from a friend or out from ourselves toward a brother. Love is within and flows […]
It is sometimes said that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. The last post examines that possibility in the context of suicide. I’d like to follow up on that theme as it relates to our humanity.
If we are spiritual beings having a human experience, then […]
I probably know more people who’ve committed suicide than anyone besides a shrink who works at a State hospital. I don’t write that to be funny, because suicide isn’t a joke. I write it because it’s true.
I’ve prepared a 240-some Power Point slide presentation on suicide. I’ve lost a client to suicide. For a long […]
It’d been a depressing start to the day. More bad news on the virus, on riots, on another type of depression we were all going through, only they spelled this one with a capital ‘D.’ I’d spoke via phone with my normally ebullient mother back in Chicago, but she was depressed, too. Everybody seemed to […]