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REALITY, OF A SORT
The single greatest problemwith dreams is that theyare utterly real when youare dreaming, the absurdis not only permittedbut expected, and in thatmoment it is hardly absurd. The dead and living comeand go with impunity,and you welcome themas real people becausefor that period of timethey are as real as you are. But awakening, you realizeit was…
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THE LANGUAGE OF ZEN
The greatest problemwith our languagein the practice of zazencan seem insurmountable. We are lovers of tenses,a dozen to choose from,one spawning offspring,time ever important to us. In zen, on the cushionthere is no past, no future,perfect or otherwise, norour friend the conditional. We strive to always bein the moment, there is nowand nothing else, and…
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FOSSIL FUEL
It should give you pauseto consider that, in the midstof boundless greed, enmeshedin the near cult of self, rushingalways to go nowhere quickly,certain the problems of the world,can be solved tomorrow, usingresources that may never bereplenished or substituted for, when we are dead and buried,we will be the fossil fuelsthat future generationsrightfully shun in horror.
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TODAY
Today we want very much to praybut words fail us yet again, and we doubtGod would hear our entreaty anyway,since this is a disaster of our own making. This is the problem of free will, as so manydiscovered across Europe during the secondof the wars to end all wars, as did the peopleof Hiroshima and…
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AT ALL COSTS
The problem is oneof disequilibrium, for wehave grown tired of itbefore it has growntired of us. There is no agreementto be reached,no chance ofa detente, nostate of truce. We will defeat it,we have nochoice, but untilthen the viruswill be our companion.
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THE TALK
She sat us down this morning for a heart to heart conversation. We had mentioned the neighbors’ new dog, their second, this one little smaller than a pony. She smiled at us, but we could tell it was a false smile, something was hiding about to be set free. “That is the problem with dogs,”…
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NEXT IN LINE
It was the moment they said, we picked you, that I knew they had not. They thought they had to say it. They knew they shouldn’t. I was the next gumball down the chute. You put in your nickel, move the lever and wait. Actually it wasn’t quite like that. If you don’t like the…
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UNANSWERED
As strange as it seems, I canspend hours in a used bookstorelost in the marginalia, and textbooks, particularly those in psych and sociologyare generally the most fertile,for those students, though they would never admit it, pursued those fieldshoping to find answers to their ownproblems without having to ask. Yesterday’s visit was particularly fertile,but it was…
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ROUND ABOUT
The great minds in Transportation have decidedthat the answer to all traffic problemsis simple, you replace troublesome intersectionswith traffic circles, but you call them roundabouts.They know that the young and wish they werein their muscle cars will avoid them like the plague,for even they cannot defeat centrifugal force,and inertia is one thing they never lack.And…
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LOOKING BACK FORWARD
Between now and eventually lies all of history. We are unable to see it though it lies in our field of vision. That’s the problem, we only know how to look backward. We are barely able to see where we are. It isn’t that we don’t want to be here, merely that here is difficult…
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an old writer and his words 