A lot of these posts are about the imponderables that come out of living and seeking wisdom.
I like to think of having wisdom — when I was young, I thought the tale of King Solomon praying for wisdom instead of riches was inspirational. Still, I haven’t found a way of making thinking solve the problems of life decisively.
So these are the “esoteric” topics that, if understood properly, allow you to have a better life. Such as What is the Goal of Life and On Asimov’s “Disproof” of God.
That said, I do enjoy a good philosophical rambling just for the sake of discourse, and so here, in this category, I’ve put a few.
7 Walmart Clothes I Bought Sight Unseen: What Was Worth It? Time was, I went into Walmart with trepidation, afraid that someone I knew from the kids’ school would see me buying groceries. I didn’t want to see anyone we knew. I didn’t think anyone else we knew shopped there. It didn’t occur to me
Why do we love shoes?
A perusal of the internet suggests we love shoes because they make us feel tall, smart.
Although it’s not just having shoes, it’s having the RIGHT shoes. You need to have shoes that somehow simultaneously blend in and stand out.
The quixotic perfect shoe.
But why?
I think this is one of those things where our memories, and the memories of our mothers and grandmothers, are tied together.
I met Philip Marlowe, private eye, some weeks ago when I went to the library and determined that I was going to find a book to read that was perhaps a guilty pleasure, that I would see sitting on the shelf and would pick it up and, clutching it close, sigh and plan my escape.
I drove hundreds of miles into southern Colorado in search of an old church, a prayer labyrinth, and perhaps an answer to a question I couldn’t quite resolve at home.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sent me back to Homer—and to the strange women, monsters, temptations, and homecomings that have kept this story alive for thousands of years.
Flying to Japan Over the middle of the Pacific, 32,000 feet in the air, the sea is a blue mat far below, the clouds a dotted carpet of white puffballs. In that moment, not sure whether it is day or night (the windows have gone blue; instead of shades, in this new plane they darken
Leaving on a Japan Trip Now perhaps leaving on a Japan trip is too vague…I actually don’t usually go to Japan so it should be leaving on the Japan trip but I don’t like to say that because to me it sounds scarier. Sitting on my porch in Fort Collins on Sunday morning, I
Why I started my blog? When I started Susan Taylor Brand I wanted something that would allow me to post about what I was learning these days, these days in which there is so much new and yet so much can be missed. In particular I wanted to talk about changes in life that come
To begin with: all right, I admit it. I was turning 60. This is not something you like to talk about. After all, this trigger for this discouragement, this turning 60, it’s pretty unchangeable. Never mind all that talk about age is just a number. Age may be just a number but it is a
Today’s Aphorism: “Lying to others is the exception. Mostly we lie to ourselves.” Friedrich Nietzsche We think we are only lying when we knowingly tell someone something else that isn’t true. In fact, we are often engaged in refusing to see the truth ourselves. Thus, Nietzsche says, “Lying to others is the expection.” You might
