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The parenthetical insertion creates a “real-time” interlude, and the addendum of the grammatical mandate, the unnecessary comma, extends the strained quietude of wanting to engage the sequential utterance. […] Read More …
We spend half of our lives trying to accomplish that which may never be done; go to others to obtain guidance; take medications in order to stamp out the cacophony of voices from a past regenerated in mindful moments when reflection is not what we want but quietude away from the cackle of memories. Imprints are those stamps that remain with us, like burn-marks seared indelibly into the far corners of body parts […] Read More …
There is a difference, is there not? Of hummingbirds and cardinals bright against the backdrop of an evergreen; of a child running across the grassy knoll; then of aged men in nursing homes, shuttered away in corners where the drool of saliva unwiped reveals the tarnish of human unkindness; and of prisons rotting away with crowded cells for addicts whose sickness is considered a crime where, in ages past, opium dens and other vices merely preached in empty churches of the difference between mortal and venial sins unrehearsed. […] Read More …
Does anyone read such an author, anymore? At least, once one is beyond the assigned reading list and mandatory college compulsions that allegedly define those who are “educated” as opposed to not, does anyone perform the act out of pleasure? Or, perhaps we would consider it more like self-torture. Once the diploma is rolled, handed and received upon the platform of recognized accolades for accomplished feats now disseminated throughout all levels of society, where “blue collar” or physical labor is no longer perceived as acceptable and everyone must be subjected to the torture of reading Dostoevsky and his impassioned monologues […] Read More …
It is the greater concept often developed through metaphors and similes; but to the extent they are now of use depends largely upon the shared cultural context within which we live. If Classical literature is no longer the common thread of meaningful discourse, can references to them in creating analogies work? To share that a person’s tragedy is more Shakespeare than Milton, or that the individual’s circumstances remind one more akin to The Road to Wigan Pier […] Read More …
Self-preservation is said to be high on the list of instinctive survival mechanisms – that which society cannot “un-learn” because of the inherent nature of such evolutionary entrenchment of DNA-coded characteristics. It used to be that, whether in the mythical “State of Nature” as advanced and envisioned by Locke, Hobbes or Rousseau, or the more fossil-based models as posited by anthropologists, the individual who was widely considered as a precarious survivor was quickly extinguished from the gene pool either though acts of foolish daring or by neglectful carelessness. […] Read More …
Once, we used pencils because such implements are almost always accompanied by an eraser. It was an acknowledgment of human imperfection, of the potentiality for making a mistake, and the realization that any extent of human activity should recognize the wish, the need and reality for erasure. But that such corrections could similarly be made for lives lived, hurts fostered and damages perpetrated. Yet, the historical requirement that has necessitated the wish for erasure has itself been erased, or significantly diminished – of a conscience instilled and allowed for maturation, […] Read More …
Don’t you hate those “Apps” that reveal how much time you have taken to engage Activity-X or mindless-video-game-Y? To engage in an aside for pure enjoyment’s sake is to get lost in the moment of leisure, to become engrossed and without a mind to time, problems of the world, circumstances of the present or the irrelevancy of one’s own station in life. To read a book – perhaps of no great consequence, neither a “classic” nor a best seller of sorts; to push buttons in responding to a mindless video game; to have a silly electronic conversation with a spouse, a friend, a daughter or son aside from the seriousness of wisdom, […] Read More …
Admittedly, any substantive insight into such a conceptual proverb used in everyday life is attributable to the eloquent thoughts of Yiyun Li, in her recently published collection of essays. Such insights are so deliciously stated, with linguistic content so deftly conveyed, that the undersigned cannot refrain from grasping, grappling and attempting to add onto that which cannot be improved upon. Well, at least plagiarism is no longer anything more than a forgivable sin, and not even a venial one at that. […] Read More …
We all make them, though we deny it. Iconoclasts scorn it; the extremes of either side scoff at it; and, in the end, it reflects the reality of who we are, how we live, and by what vaunted principles we purportedly possess.
On a theoretical level, it is easy to remain the stalwart – that singular entity standing on principle and commitment. The one who has never experienced war – to express beliefs of “courage”, “unwavering loyalty” and blind bravery declared in wrappings of the flag and national identity. Or of fidelity and traditional values despite personal shortcomings of multiple marital infidelities and 3 or 4 marriages, […] Read More …