I apologize for the lateness of posting this. I had an unexpectedly hard time finishing the follow-up to my first installment. I actually completed it more than a week ago, but I didn’t feel good about what I’d written. It felt like the tone was all wrong. I was being too strident and too dark, so I ended of scrapping the entire first draft and … Continue reading Building the Muscular Mind (Installment Two)
just as Seneca thought Stoics could benefit from various Epicurean principles and practices, so should Stoics be able to use this traditionally Buddhist exercise Continue reading A non-Stoic exercise for Stoic philanthropia
What would we say about the glass to indicate a perspective that is neither pessimistic nor optimistic? Continue reading A “half-glass of water” question
In previous posts I’ve been expanding on four difficulties probably faced by those of us attempting to practice Stoic philosophy. Here is the fourth: a certain lack of effective exercises for developing “philanthropy,” meaning a love of humanity or love of human beings. This “philanthropy” is itself a great topic and matter for reflection, but I won’t go into that here. I want to focus … Continue reading A Stoic difficulty: developing love for humanity (philanthropy)
Like most people, I’ve led an unusual life. For me, part of its unorthodoxy is my insistence on trying to make a living as a writer. Let’s just say, it’s been an uphill climb. But occasionally I comfort myself with the knowledge that there are a million reasons why things either gain recognition or fail to. So, here are a few quick and hilarious examples. … Continue reading A Mercifully Brief Post About Knowing Nothing
If you’re a long-time reader of my blogs, you know that I spent about two decades living the life of an expatriated American. I am proud of that time in my life. I first went abroad as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to Poland, not long after the collapse of the Soviet system, and then lived in the UAE, Turkey, and Egypt. Prior to my leaving … Continue reading Beware: Garbage In, Garbage Out
My wife and I take care of a few feral cats that live in our neighborhood. They move quietly and gracefully into and out of our backyard and remind me of lithe shadows. We feed and water them, and when it got summertime hot back in early June, we constructed a crude but effective cat “shelter” which gave the felines a chance to get out … Continue reading Goodbye Spunky
I want to finish this series of posts on personality I’ve put together over the past couple of months by giving you an analogy. To first recap, there are five major personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness. Wherever you lie on the spectrum of each trait – whatever the circumstances that shaped you – this is the hand you’ve been dealt in this … Continue reading The Hand We’ve Been Dealt
What learning how to run taught me about life. Continue reading Running: It’s Not About Actual Running
Hello to my fellow bloggers and blog-lovers! I’m Elle, or E.L. Jayne as my pen name states, and I’ve embarked my own rendition of an Eat, Pray, Love trip this summer, albeit, without the dramatic divorce and existential crisis at the onset, luckily. Deciding to travel for 4 months made me reflect on the catalyst that drives people to travel in the first place. Some … Continue reading On The Different Reasons People Travel
A tornado warning reveals that obvious things are not at all obvious to wives with different perspectives. Continue reading Tornado Warning: How To Survive A Twister While Married
The great Lao Tzu (ancient Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism, and author of the Tao Te Ching) is attributed with having written the following famous quote: Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. For anyone who is seeking a logical understanding of the … Continue reading Are You Watching
A lot of Stoic teachings describe the way a sage would see and feel. We of course are not sages. Yet we can easily fall into trying to be one immediately, trying to force our perception and feelings to be other than they must be at this stage of our development. This is one of four ways we may easily stumble, in attempting to learn … Continue reading The pitfall wherein we try immediately to be a sage
I’m amazed by how my mind works. I never know when an idea for a blog is going to come to me. For example, this morning, just after pulling into a parking space upon arriving at my work and then killing the engine, I immediately realized that I do a lot of the same things in my job that engineers do in theirs. So why … Continue reading Pardon Me While I Get This Off My Chest
A vision into our interconnected selves Continue reading The Great Illusion of Separation
Two cavemen, Gronk and Thogg, were sitting on a rock ledge, overlooking the expanse of land that stretched before them. The afternoon sun was full and bright; not a cloud was in the sky. In the near distance, wildlife grazed or darted playfully to and fro. The warbled songs and stabbing calls of various birds filled the air. Life was good. Impulsively Thogg turned toward … Continue reading Caveman Wisdom
Many Americans are convinced that the COVID pandemic is over. Thinking this way would be a mistake. I know because my wife contracted the virus at some point recently and tested positive on Friday of last week. Despite being fully vaccinated, she’s feeling quite unwell. As a result, I’ve moved into the front bedroom—the one with the television—leaving my wife to recuperate in our master. … Continue reading All that Jazz
In a previous post, I mentioned that reliance on “providentialistic” views was one potential difficulty for present-day Stoics. Today I’ll explain this a bit. When I say “providentialistic” or “providentialism,” I’m referring to what theoretical discourses term “divine providence,” or perhaps more accurately, a belief in divine providence. In short, belief in divine providence is the belief that everything which happens, happens in accordance with … Continue reading The Pitfall of Reliance on Providentialism
This post is going to appear like a major detour from my usual topics related to consciousness and enlightenment, but it does contain a little information related to the law of attraction. The law, which many persons may find questionable, or outright unbelievable, is that we bring about what we think about. This can also be expressed as follows: We don’t get what we want; … Continue reading The Heart Always Wins
This past Saturday, I got up early because I had a Zoom meeting with a Pointless Overthinking colleague who lives on the other side of the planet. Despite my best efforts, I’d gotten up a touch late and was in a hurry to get breakfast eaten so I wouldn’t be tardy for our online rendezvous. For quite a long time now, right after breaking my … Continue reading It’s Not a Bug; It’s a Feature
