“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.” -Malachi Constant “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan The hero of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel, The Sirens of…

We Are What We Pretend To Be “This is the only story of mine whose moral I know,” writes Kurt Vonnegut at the beginning of his 1962 novel Mother Night. “I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend…

Although some of my favorite novels are what we usually think of as “literature,” over-all my favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy. I think this is for two reasons. The first is that sci-fi/fantasy is the most philosophical of all genres. The freedom from so-called “realism” allows the greatest…

Spinoza In Plain English Book 2 Part 7: (Propositions 12–19) In our last essay we discussed Spinoza’s fascinating view of individuality, which circumvents a number of the conundrums the philosophy of selfhood usually tangles itself in. He argues that when a number of bodies communicate their motions to each other in a consistent ratio so that they produce an action…

words from a Buddhist monk on forbearance — I am currently reading the book Good Heart, Good Mind by my teacher and abbot when I was a monk, Thanissaro Bhikkhu (available free here). It’s a book of talks he gave in Brazil and France about the ten virtues, or “parami” of the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, often called the…

Recently, at times it would be good medicine, I’ve begun to sometimes chant the Nembutsu, a kind of mantra associated with Jodo Shu, a Japanese form of Pure Land Buddhism usually considered a form of devotional “folk Buddhism.” Sometimes I’ll chant it out loud, sometimes internally. Why would I do…

Well, it’s been quite the couple of weeks on social media. There has been a lot that has been positive amongst the pain: I have made friends from far and wide — Jews who I found being courageous enough to criticize their own community and stand up for the rights…