Tacitus, an Roman historian, writes these words in the Annals sometime around 117 CE: “I wanted to dispel the fictions of hearsay, and to ask people into whose hands my book may come not to prefer widely circulated and eagerly accepted… Read More ›
Thoughtlets
Thoughtlets.XLVII.
Just when news anchors’ hemorrhoid-inducing overuse of mindless phrases such as walk it back and double down starts to wane, another wave of brain-deadening soundbites inevitably waxes. And at its crest is the phrase bad actors. This phrase doesn’t refer… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. XLVI. Observing patterns of human behaviour.
Some find Tacitus’ Annals tedious. Some of it is. But his work keeps me riveted. I’m not so interested in history, per se. Rather I’m interested in identifying patterns of human behaviour, events that repeat over millennia, and asking why… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. XLV. Theodicy revisited.
News media characteristically brings us one story after another about the kinds of things humans to do each other which are broadly characterized as “evil”. And these stories tend to generate accusations of “evil-doers” which are then dispatched with the… Read More ›
Thought experiment: the last humans. (Thoughtlets. XL.)
Thought experiment. Imagine some cosmic event renders all humans sterile. After a number of decades pass, humankind literally enters a Golden Age, with an exclusively senior population. Although, ‘senior’ might lose its current meaning when the youngest among us is… Read More ›
Thoughlets. XLIV.
Do you ever wonder what future generations will look like? Look in a mirror. You are the future generations of those who lived before you. And do you ever wonder what future future generations will think of you and your… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. XLIII.
Never said in a fit of outrage: I could be wrong.
Thoughtlets. XLII.
A couple of summers ago I found myself irritated by a teenage girl lying beside a stone bridge along the Llangollen Canal, face stuffed in her cellphone. But why? I’m sure I projected onto her the irritation I feel by… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. XLI.
(Re: the expression “my lived experience”) Here is the list of my experiences that I have not lived:
Thoughtlets. xxxix.
One [wo]man’s ambiguity is another’s certainty. And vice versa.
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