Articles from March 2010 ↓

This morning I woke up wondering about good and evil. I wondered if goodness exists apart from human perception and religious concepts. I wondered the same about evil. Does evil dwell somewhere in the universe, independent of our judgment and imagination?

We use the words good and evil in pairs. Are we implying that one cannot exist without the other? If so, are we saying that the yin/yang of human perception is an absolute truth; that there is no ultimate goodness or ultimate evil; just an eternal tug-o-war? Continue reading →

Is self education on the rise? Is it necessary for young people to educate themselves outside of the school system?

My Son’s Fiance, just sent me a link to an article her Sister wrote in collaboration with a couple of her journalism classmates. Their story, MakerCulture: Edupunks of the world unite!, is all about the growing trend to self education.

“The word is EduPunk and it sums up the need for educational reform — reform that, to some extent, has already begun.” “What does that mean? It means people are coming up with their own ways of educating themselves. Ways that don’t include conventional tools, but rather new devices”

Self learning, and what I perceive as a failure of the educational system, has been close to my heart since high school. I can honestly say that I largely educated myself. I took the onus upon myself because the school system as it was in my day, could not address my particular areas of interest and aptitude, early enough in the process.

High school for me then, was a boring and unnecessarily long-winded preamble. I got so fed up with it that I quit 3 months prior to graduation. Continue reading →

Life is… let me think a minute… alright then, here’s a picture for you: life is a ball of tangled elastic bands with something really special buried deep inside. The lure is to find the hidden treasure.

Life is like that; full of intriguing discoveries. Like those cereal boxes when I was a kid with the baking-soda-powered toy SUBMARINE–FREE INSIDE. It was a hook, and who could resist?

Back to the ball of elastic bands though: when I was a small boy I wondered why golf balls bounced so high. My Dad was a golfer, so I took one of his golf balls and dissected it to find out why. I was exhilarated as I cut through the casing; like I was splitting the atom or something. What would happen? Would it explode in my face? The energy of that ball had to be locked in there somewhere, and I was about to release it.
Continue reading →

Today is a soft and sunshiny day and I want to share it with you. It isn’t officially spring yet where I live, but through the window today, the sky is blue and winter’s colors are gradually moving out of phase.

Green shoots and flowers-to-be are pushing through the brown of winter, the birds are creating homes, and the sun is caressing my heart–reminding me of all things possible, bright, and beautiful.

Winter is gray where I live. And I feel winter’s grayness because it reflects the low clouds that swirl within me; the socked-in system of unreconciled emotion.

But the sun is shining now. I feel its warmth. I see its clear light. There is nothing more beautiful than the warm rays of sunshine in the winter of your heart.

Do you feel it also?