I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one.”
— Albert Camus
Tag: It
… can’t really be named, only experienced.
Confessions of a Sidewalk Astronomer
THERE ARE TWO TELESCOPES IN my living room, a third in a backpack in my bedroom closet, and a pair of astronomical binoculars on the bookcase near the front door. “Why so many?” you may ask. Easy answer: I am…
Why Am I Still Here?
BARRING ANY UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, I will celebrate my 62nd birthday tomorrow. Leading me to ask: “How did THAT happen?” As a child of the 1970s and very early ’80s, my gentle nihilism is understandable. It was a period marked by…
I’m not here. I’m an event. I’m an improbable coalescence of stardust enjoying one fleeting, glorious dance through the cosmos before … poof.”
— Adrian Bliss
5 Thoughts: Make. BELIEVE.
0. READ CAREFULLY — THERE WILL BE a test later on. 1. In the book of Exodus, Moses tells the Children of Israel that G?d wants to enter into a contract with them. With one voice, and without knowing the…
We’re all just raindrops on a windshield.”
— Jerry Seinfeld, to Michael Richards in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”
Let’s Get Real
ON THIS DAY EIGHT YEARS ago, I stepped out from under the shadow of a decades-long cannabis addiction. And I haven’t been the same man since. Thank God. What brought me to that point was twofold: I decided that 1)…
Fear of death is worse than death.”
— R. Yehudah de Modena
The Poet
HE COULDN’T TELL WHETHER HE loved beauty or women more until the day he called his mom and said “Guess what? I’m marrying a sunset.”
Fable, With Apocalypse
IN THE MIDDLE OF A flat grey wasteland, under a grey streaky sky, a handful of figures warm themselves at a snapping fire. “Hey! What are you doing?” One of the figures has turned to gape across the waste: a…
The Feeling
YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOONS ARE USUALLY the spacetime nexus where radical growth happens — and this year was no exception. Let’s set the stage. After an intense twenty-or-so hours of not eating or otherwise tending to physicality, continuous guided liturgical meditation,…
365 Names: “Friend”
FRIEND, AT LEAST AS A Divine Name, is inspired by the Breslov Chasidic tradition. Its founder, Rebbe Nachman, once said (quoting from memory) “It is good to pour out your heart to God as if you were speaking to a…