Montaigne on Ketchup-Flavoured Cheetos
In his famous work, Essays, Michel de Montaigne, channelling the Epicureans, wrote that, “All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim. (Book I: On the…
philosophy
Buddhism: Surface & Depth; Or, Big Mind & Baby Minds
Buddhist meditation and mindfulness are very popular now, and have become mainstream. Hospitals, churches and secular classes are now offering meditation and mindfulness training and practice. That is a good…
Reflections on the good life – Simplify, simplify
What brings true happiness? A healthy lifestyle; a positive attitude, outlook and philosophy; a simple life close to nature; meaningful work; time spent in solitude and stillness, reconnecting with yourself;…
A Meeting of the Minds?
Niccolo Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne never met, nor could they have — Machiavelli died six years before Montaigne was born, and they lived about 1,200 km (800 miles) apart…
The death and rebirth of Pelagius, and the (still unfolding) history of Christianity: A New Renaissance, or Hell On Earth?
Pelagius: it’s a soft g, as in germane, not a hard g, as in gorilla, but otherwise the discussion here in this podcast below is good. Here are a few…
Musings on Aesop and Local Politics
I’ve always liked reading “wisdom tales”; I still read and delight in those Zen Buddhist stories that Paul Reps recounted in his book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which I first…
Musings on Montaigne’s Cannibals
Montaigne’s essay On Cannibals contributed at least some of the content and ideas in Shakespeare’s late play, The Tempest. A speech by the recently-shipwrecked counsellor Gonzalo in Act 2, Sc.1…
Musings on Art and Taste
Many years ago, I had a lengthy correspondence with a friend in another part of Canada about what constitutes art. His basic argument was that art was not neutral or…
Musings on Cats and Philosophers
British philosopher John Gray thinks cats can “often teach us much more about living the good life than philosophy ever could.” As a lifetime cat owner, I can vouch for…
I Have A Dream
I Have A Dream: surely, and unquestionably, that great speech by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the most important, and most beautiful, uplifting, empowering, ennobling,…
Enlightenment & The Power Of Emptiness
OK, gangster punks, rebels and revolutionaries, free spirits and seekers of truth, hear this: People don’t understand the power of emptiness. With all my heart, I wish they did. And…
Getting Comfortable With Uncertainty
People everywhere are the same – people are people. We have far more in common than we have differences between us. And all the differences, or at least the great…
Yuval Harari: Bleak Is Back!
Yuval Harari is a shallow thinking dogmatic materialist who swallows whole and uncritically the dominant pseudo-scientific paradigm of mechanistic materialist dualism, which of course is an extremely bleak view of…
Why Master Sun Matters Today
Master Sun was a wise man. So wise that his famous treatise, The Art of War (aka The Art of Warfare), has been read, written about, critiqued, and discussed for…
The Madness of Nietzsche
Nietzsche was either terribly misinterpreted, as my dearly departed scholar brother was adamant to say, or he was simply mad his entire life, and his philosophy was a philosophy of…
Stoicism: A Philosophy of Powerlessness
Stoicism is recently faddish and in vogue, but it is fashionable only to those who don’t understand it. It is not surprising that Stoicism is attractive to many people now,…
Robertson Davies and Alice Walker: A Review By Someone Who Has Never Read A Single Word They Have Written
Such a delightfully warm and witty man, Robertson Davies seems most definitely to be. He looks so severe, when you first look at his face, but then he speaks, and…
Who To Trust: The Short Answer
Who to trust? That is always a perennial question, and particularly now, when not only government, corporations, politicians and corporate and state media have repeatedly been shown to have lied,…