Orūmīyeh I picked a deer tick off of me a day ago, came down with a fever almost simultaneously, and now I have the tell-tale rash developing around the bite; it looks like Lyme disease. Most unfortunate. I’ve heard that the test is both unreliable and (for those without insurance) expensive (I heard $500 today), so […]
Category Archives: Comments on Life
Fever.
06-Jul-10From Dostoevsky.
25-Jun-10The conclusions of one of the revolutionaries in Demons: “I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea I start out from. Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that apart from my solution to the social problem, there is no other.”
One of the impressive things about modern ugliness and inefficiency is that it has always gotten the approval of committees specifically designed to preserve the aesthetics and functionality of neighborhoods. But since committee-humanity is unable to make a subjective judgement – saying, “This plan is ugly and it should not be built” seems insufficiently objective […]
For the Feast of John the Baptist: this extremely good essay by Wendell Berry; highly recommended. Proof – as if it were needed – that the Magisterium of the Church resides not in the priesthood – which is almost always wrong – but in the Prophets. As it was, is now, and ever shall be. […]
Physicality.
11-Jun-10Wracked with pains the past couple of nights, apparently from overworking my body. I am mystified to report that after two years in the woods my body appears to be more fragile rather than less; I had hoped for rather the opposite. I suppose I may attribute it to aging. It is a shame how […]
I remember while studying Thoreau in depth, I got a terrible desire to listen to Don Henley music, for no apparent reason. I went out and bought his greatest hits album, in which it stated that he was giving a portion of the proceeds to the Walden Woods Project, to save the woods around Walden […]
No Free Lunch.
07-May-10A very nice feature in the New York Times on the evolution of glyphosphate-resistant weeds; they have six authorities giving their opinion on what to do as a response, including Michael Pollan. Glyphosphate (Roundup) is made by Monsanto, as are a special series of genetically modified crops called Roundup Ready crops, engineered to be glyphosphate-resistant, […]
The Deeper Meaning of Parenting.
07-May-10One of the questions that has most been with me the past two years is this: If I had a son or daughter, would I have anything to really teach them? Would I have gathered from my years on earth some kind of life-wisdom to pass on to them? Or would all my knowledge be […]
Simone de Beauvoir.
27-Apr-10Apparently a new edition of her book The Second Sex is out (rather substance-free review from Salon here). I found the book in a friend’s house a few weeks ago, and devoured a few hundred pages of it before my visit ended. It’s dazzlingly intelligent and endlessly fascinating; I read it as perhaps it is […]
Kindred Spirits.
28-Jul-10Grand Rapids This poem, by William Roscoe, returns to my mind from time to time, and encapsulates something of what I seek in all things, that moment when “mind shall with mind direct communion hold.” I think of it now for many reasons – I feel full of desire for this communion, and always in this world […]