Category Archives: Philosophy

Our Man Falters at the Fork

Activism, Character, Decoupling, Dysrationalia, My Poetry, Philosophy, Politics, Religion
Fork In the Road for Brunslow. Credit.

A man walks the road of life,
Caring as he cares along the way
And doing as he does—
And enjoying the routine
As he may.

And if he walks long enough, he will
Surely come to a dilemma of the sort
Where the road will not go where he wants,
And stubbornly presents two undesirable options—

The one being that some certain problem
In this world cannot be solved without
The inspiring and organizing of many people
To pull together in the same direction—

And the other being that he has
Chanced upon a problem that
Simply cannot be solved at all,
And must rather be endured.

And this is the fork at which
It’s sometimes hard to tell
Which of these two distasteful ideas
A person will have a harder
Time accepting.

And being like so many others,
Our man falters at the fork,
Not liking either option of the two,
And choosing instead the surprising third—

Which is to march in place,
Still caring as he cares
And doing as he does—
As if expecting that some better option
Should soon present itself—
And until then,
Counting his caring
And his doing
As his proper duty—
And his marching in place
As progress.

Looking for a Reason to Shut You Down

Activism, Character, Cognitive Bias, Cognitive-/Moral-Miserliness, Decoupling, Dysrationalia, My Poetry, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, The Will
Wikimedia Commons Credit

Do you understand that
The moment you start to introduce
New material for the consideration of the typical audience,
The minds of most of them begin immediately to
Look for a reason not to consider it?

Continue reading Looking for a Reason to Shut You Down →

Priorities: Even the Best Minds Can Choose the Un-Best Things

Character, Cognitive Bias, Cognitive-/Moral-Miserliness, Decoupling, Dysrationalia, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, The Will

Perhaps you are an exceptional individual, having trained your own mind much more than your neighbors train theirs. And perhaps it’s quite obvious that your own priorities have been chosen with more diligence and care than they choose their priorities. Perhaps the things you think about and study and promote are considerably more advanced than your neighbors are willing to invest themselves in. And perhaps, if they would listen to you and invest in some of these things, it would make the world around you a considerably better place.

Continue reading Priorities: Even the Best Minds Can Choose the Un-Best Things →

The Heritage of Thought

Character, My Poetry, Philosophy

It is generally our human privilege
To create new babies
Passing along our heritage on the Earth
And making a name for ourselves—
For a time at least.

And I suppose we don’t think enough
About either the import of that
Or the honor of it.

But I’m adamant that
We don’t think enough
About the heritage of thought
That we pass along to this world
Putting it out daily wherever we go—
And even in the homes where we keep
The precious children we have made.

And Get Away With It

Character, Dysrationalia, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

He thinks he can fudge the facts
And get away with it—
That he knows what he’s doing
And everything’s going to be all right.
But the practice has already taken its toll
And he cannot see himself for what he truly is,
Even in his obvious acts of hypocrisy.
And being blinded thus far,
He doubles down with more deceit—
With bald-faced lies in response to those
Who tell the truth about what he has done.
He did not, I venture,
Get enough spankings.