We have spent tens of thousands of years recklessly hacking away at creation. We sloppily remodel the world around us because it never quite suits us. It appears that there’s always some alteration that we deem to be superior to the original design. It seems that we seldom look at life long enough to appreciate the unmatchable qualities that exist … [Read more...]

My life is spent in holes more times than its not.  Some are deep and some are not so deep.  I have this maniacal tendency to go from one hole to another, rarely staying above ground long enough to understand what above ground looks like.  Instead, I’m repeatedly looking up from the bottom of some hole that I don’t necessarily remember falling … [Read more...]

No one likes pain.  We don’t go shopping for it and we don’t clip coupons trying to get it at some discount.  I don’t think most of us expend our lives in the pursuit of it, nor are we on some sort of safari with the intent of bagging it as a trophy.  In reality, when we see it coming, we typically run as fast and as far as possible in whatever … [Read more...]

“Who am I?”  The question seems a bit overused these days.  It’s something more like a vogue, trendy kind of question that pulls us out of the doldrums of living among the masses and plants us in the more desirable currents of the intellectual mainstream.  The question suggests that we’re exercising our intellectual acumen to probe our existence, … [Read more...]

We hear a lot of things.  A whole lot of things.  We’re incessantly bombarded with sheets and shards and streams of information.  It’s about bits and bytes and boatloads of data that we ingest and digest without even realizing that we’re doing that.  Either consciously or unconsciously we compile all of that sordid stuff into some sort of choppy … [Read more...]

Mankind’s history is strewn with sordid stories of horrific evil.  The yellowed pages of history as well as the fresh pages of the daily paper are littered thick and knee deep with accounts of ruthless destruction, mindless devastation, heartless obliteration and acts so viciously awful that they are at times entirely incomprehensible.  We can cull … [Read more...]

What is independence?  Definitions abound, but what is it in actuality?  The Encarta Dictionary describes it as "freedom from dependence on or control by another person, organization, or state."  At its core, it's freedom from dependence or control.  It grants self-autonomy and self-directedness free of encumbrances.  Independence provides the … [Read more...]

I grew up in the shadow of a generation who faced the depravity of the Great Depression and then fought through the horrors of World War II.  The deep sense of patriotism and solemn respect for our country ran high among these great people. Therefore, as the Fourth of July once again rolls around on the calendar, I find it appropriate to take a … [Read more...]

Too often we don’t appreciate what we didn’t work for or had to sacrifice for in one way or another.  Hand something to us with no effort exerted on our part to acquire it, and we’ll probably exhibit some scantily shallow and rather quickly fleeting degree of appreciation for it.  But make us work for something and expend actual energy in order to … [Read more...]