Philosophy
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My Summer with Montaigne: “Of Solitude”, pt. III
“These essays are an attempt to communicate a soul. On this point at least he is explicit. It is not fame that he wants; it is not that men shall quote him in years to come; he is setting up no statue in the market-place; he wishes only to communicate his soul.” Virginia Woolf on Continue reading
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My Summer with Montaigne: “Of Solitude”, pt. II
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Continue reading
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My Summer With Montaigne: “Of solitude”, pt. I
I thought it fitting to start this little project by considering Montaigne’s writings on solitude. I say this because this summer, like the past half dozen summers, I am again out in the woods and in the mountains. Though this existence isn’t solitude in the extreme, it is a degree of solitude. There are far Continue reading
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“It is a question of understanding my destiny.”
The quote above is lifted from an entry in Kierkegaard’s journal. Here’s the fragment I jotted down in my notebook: “What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do, not what I must know….It is a question of understanding my destiny.” (Journals & Notebooks, vol. 1, p22.) It was the Continue reading
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The Grand Canyon and other philosophies
I’ve been engaged the last couple years in correspondence with a young man in prison. He is a family friend who made a bad decision. He has a bent for big ideas so naturally the two of us have had a great deal to talk about. We had a recent exchange, a portion of which Continue reading
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“What does your spiritual life look like?”
“Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?” ~ Henry David Thoreau A couple weeks ago while sitting quietly in contemplation overlooking an alpine lake a woman approached and asked, “What does your spiritual life look like?” There were a few utterances between us leading up to this most personal—and frankly, interesting—question. Continue reading
...the house I live in... 