Most writing is the scratching of an insatiable itch for immortality. Alas, the more written, the greater the itch. Dee Hock Since reading Dee’s most recent work, Autobiography of a Restless Mind, I have been pondering the human desire for immortality, and wondering if, perhaps, we understand immortality inaccurately. 2.2 million books were published last …
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Frederick Buechner In an interview with Peter Block many years ago I asked about the nature of our gifts. “We’re blind to our capacities. If you ask people what their strengths are, the list they come …
I recall a video game, Tetrisphere, which was a variation of Tetris. In the game the player confronted a sphere covered by three-dimensional shapes. The game provided the player with a series of objects similar in shape to those covering the sphere. When you matched a piece with one on the outermost layer of the …
The flow of a river is constrained by its banks. Over time, however, the rushing water erodes the banks and redirects the course of the river. Riverbanks are necessary to give form, and yet the river retains the power to alter its future. If you would be willing to play along, what appears a game …
Note: The following will appear in the May/June Issue of Neighbors of Batavia Magazine. If I asked, would you tell me of your gifts—the unique, stunning aspects of your humanity and journey that make you like no other human ever born? Even if you were able, would you be willing? Or would you, like so …
Note: I am submitting this for publication in the November/December issue of Neighbors of Batavia magazine. “Imagination is the organ that allows us to thrive on the cusp between danger and opportunity.” Lee Smolin in Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe Every morning we wake into a world fraught …
Note: I wrote the following piece for the Batavia Chamber of Commerce newsletter, but thought it might be of interest to the readers of my blog I’ve been accused of focusing too much on images of death, but bear with me, you just might find the questions I am about to ask confusing and irritating …
Note: This post will be published in the May-June Issue of Neighbors of Batavia magazine. Funny, how the cost of a ball can lead me to thoughts of the value of life itself. Several recent books (Antifragile, The Power of Habit and Thinking, Fast and Slow) reflect upon the human brain and the …
Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, said it whimsically: few people on their deathbed wish they had spent more time at the office. But recent encounters leave me reflecting, considerably less whimsically, on what I might wish the moments just before I am called from this life. For ten …
Imagine for a moment you have returned to your childhood. In your infancy, at an age that precedes memory, you were given a blanket, which, in the intervening years, became your constant companion. You ran to find it every time the world came at you in a way far more complex than your innocence could …