Monthly Archives: July 2010

Imagine this: You are the High Priest of a nomadic tribe following a herd of foraging sheep. When the tribe needs food, a beast is slain and the meat is shared equally. The political structure is hierarchical, but even the … Continue reading →

That’s a lot to take in, so indulge me as we summarize what we’ve talked about so far: You are a sovereign soul. Your purposive behavior is exclusively controlled by your self. You cannot be governed. Other people cannot control … Continue reading →

You’ve been told your whole life that all the troubles of the world owe to selfishness, and that the only true path to happiness is to renounce the self and to damn the only life you have ever known. Who … Continue reading →

Let’s start with this idea: You are a sovereign soul. I have a lot more to say about the nature of the self, within this series of posts and throughout my writing, but, in a political context, this is the … Continue reading →

So: Let’s drop the shit-hammer, shall we? Greece is broke. So is England, and so is most of the rest of Europe. California is broke, Illinois is broke, and, if you count unfunded pension liabilities, not only are all the … Continue reading →

You can’t remember being born but I watched, awestruck and amazed with your determination, yes, and your beauty of course, but also of the things you did naturally. Things like learning, absorbing, growing, striving to enter the world on your own terms, as a baby you did that. You did it in part because of your own individual stubborn need to assert yourself into the world but more because we are born with a healthy and completely natural need to assert our selves into the world. These are survival skills that we cannot deny and to try to deny them is wholly unhealthy.

There are things we need in this life: Food, clothing, shelter in the physical, but there are also things we need that are baked into the cake of our DNA. Things like being productive, that is, productive problem solving. We need to produce, create, find solutions. That is us as healthy human beings and we cannot ignore this fact. Healthy humans are driven to be productive for themselves, to create their own lives and solve their own problems. We love doing this because it is what drives us. Perhaps it drives many animals on some level or another, but we can create solutions to our own problems and share them with others. That’s uniquely human and we see it in infants and young children who not only absorb tremendous amounts of information every single moment, but even babies insist on sharing most of what they’ve learned with the rest of the world. Fed, feedback. Fed information, feedback information, problems solved and production and creation accomplished: Be fruitful and multiply. Continue reading →

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story The very first thing she said to me was, “I’m Anastasia.” She had pronounced the name ‘Anna-stay-juh’ but I took care to be more formal. I nodded gravely and said, “‘Ah-nah-STAH-ziuh’. I’m honored.” She giggled … Continue reading →