Month: July 2012
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On climbing and humility
I put my head down after every climb, after I finish climbing. Chalking up shows reverence to the rock, the wind, the approaching sky. A tree grows out of the shoulder, sun-brushed. The Daoist philosopher, sitting in a treehouse, lives according to nature.
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On waste and a life of simplicity
My parents taught me not to waste what was useful. When we accidentally left the lights on in the basement and my father found out, he marched upstairs, greeted us in our bedrooms, and told us to go to the basement to turn the lights off. We did, begrudgingly. Even though by local standards we…
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I cannot remember the last book I read from cover to cover…
I cannot remember the last book I read from cover to cover. On the chest beside the bed, I see a small number of books with bookmarks jutting out from the middle. In the past month, I am not sure that I have read any books save some poems by Whitman and Lorca. Yesterday when…
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The transformation of the beautiful soul: A revised account
I think I want to modify my account somewhat of the transformation of an individual into a beautiful soul. A beautiful soul, we said, manifests beauty in his appreciation of beauty. How is it possible for one to become a beautiful soul? To begin with, I want to say that the preparation for becoming a…
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The transformation of the beautiful soul
The beautiful soul is a person who exhibits beauty in his general appreciation of beauty. I asked my friend, the philosopher David E. Cooper, the following question: Is there an ‘education’ of the beautiful soul, a path one might follow in hopes of becoming one and, if so, what might this involve? In our conversation,…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 