Month: September 2011
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I’ll play your body if you play mine: An existential dialogue (Work in progess)
Yesterday I had a remarkable conversation with Martyn Clark. Among many other things, he’s working on a year-long project loosely called “40 years, 40 collaborations.” After our conversation, he recorded his initial reply. It’s a moving 4-minute piano improvisation that damn-near too my breath away. As I listened to Martyn’s reply and thought back over our…
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On getting kicked in the teeth: A letter to a friend
The following is a letter I wrote to a friend of mine a few days ago. The names have been changed and the personal information removed. — September 14, 2011 Dear Sarah, Yes, John is a strange fellow. The bad thing is that he’s boorish and dull. The good thing is that he understands the…
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Concerning the ills of talkativeness
The lovely thing about Plutarch is that no subject is too common that it cannot reveal much about us and our minor vices. So it is with talkativeness. The chatterer, in saying much, lacks much. He lacks self-control and courage, secrets flowing too freely from his open mouth and loose tongue. Yet what he lacks…
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On the Ulysses effect: Insight, foresight, and ingenuity
The Story Aware that, when the time comes, he will be unable to resist the siren’s beautiful song yet cognizant of the fact that the siren is really a death trap, Ulysses advises his men to secure him firmly to the ship’s mast. That way, he can listen to the song without being lured to…
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Todd May on the meaningfulness of lives
In his New York Times The Stone blog “On the Meaningfulness of Lives,” Todd May seeks to rescue the concept of meaning from Sartre’s pronouncement that in a godless universe the concept is unintelligible. A worthy endeavor. Here’s how the argument goes. 1. Distinctions. Meaningfulness is not morality (good or bad, good or evil). Meaningfulness is…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 