Might Be Mad

I hate politics. Yet as a citizen of a state, and not by choice a member of the trans-national human race, there is no excuse for not taking an active interest (at the minimum, a raised brow), in public affairs at both the local and global levels. Was it not Pericles who said — I paraphrase, the more industrious among you can look it up in Book Two of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War and be amply rewarded — that one of the points for which Athens is worthy of admiration, lies in the fact that even ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry (shoemakers, making shoes all day), are fair judges of public matters — informed, sensible, participative. Those who have no interest in public affairs are not called unambitious, but “useless”! I have an interest in politics. I don’t love it. Interest and love are not the same, else “love interest” would make no sense, or no more sense than “banana banana” or “horse horse”. Why am I thinking of bananas? That may ha...

Contrary to popular belief among those who know me (a highly qualified use of “know”, since how well do we even “know” ourselves, much less our peers?), I do know (again, “know”!) a little bit about food. Not so much in its preparation, but surely, in its enjoyment. Would that I didn’t; but as a man of the flesh, possessing a heightened consciousness and sensitivity to the pleasures from the physical senses (are there but five?), I’m ashamed to admit that earthly pleasures hold not a little sway over me — and food is one of these. Food for me is a sentimental thing; a language, a window — touching without touching, talking without words. Beyond technical skill and finesse in its preparation, like music, much of the enjoyment also comes from the care and heart that is put into it, which is communicated to the person doing the eating. As the eyes reveal a person’s soul, food is likewise a portal, a direct window into a mind or a culture. I’m not making this up — you could look past a pai...

Consistent with my general habit of setting modest goals, this blog's opening entry shall be about nothingness – which is not the same as nothing. Nothing is just nothing. Nothingness is about being nothing, which consequently becomes something (being is necessarily about being something or other...) This is not trickery with words. There must be something about nothing; otherwise there would be nothing to say or think about it. The latter would be absurd, since we are always fussing about nothing: doing nothing, getting upset over nothing... even basing religions and belief systems on the pursuit of pure nothingness. Could it be, that on a thought (about nothing), nothing became something? Is that how life and the universe came about? On a thought? Whose? Back on planet earth, I recall, as a first-year philosophy student, that one of my tutors was especially fond of saying, that “there is more that exists than meets the eye.” A rather clumsy way of saying whatever she wanted t...