Year: 2012

• July 16, 2012

  What makes it impossible to become a beautiful soul

  Let’s suppose we spend our days exercising many of the virtues. They may include  fidelity, courage, patience, and so on. I am curious how it is that the prominence of one salient vice such as arrogance can throw a person’s demeanor into disharmony and thereby make it impossible for him to become a beautiful soul.…
• July 14, 2012

  In praise of the open-ended conversation

  The open-ended conversation is not a philosophical conversation, but yet it serves an important purpose. Based in dialogue, it implies that both speakers are equals. Being open-ended, it implies that there is no set agenda, no explicit attempt to use another as a means for one’s ends, and no explicit expectations concerning what is to…
• July 13, 2012

  Summary of a good inquiry concerning the rarity of good female friendships

  In my philosophy practice, I have been thinking lately about what stays with my conversation partners after I have left the scene. I know that I will not always be there for them, that I will die someday, and I want to make sure that they will flourish without me. What stays, therefore, with them?…
• July 12, 2012

  What activities maintain or enhance sober joy?

  During the past couple weeks, some conversation partners, friends, and I have been discussing my friend David E. Cooper’s concept of “sober joy” (see his book, Convergence With Nature). I think I want to say, at least for the moment, that sober joy is a yes-saying demeanor or comportment characterized by a general steadiness and…
• July 10, 2012

  A Yogi in Central Park

  The man claimed to be a Yogi. We were in Central Park when he said this, and we were on our way to meditate beneath a crooked tree. The Yogi asked us questions, all of the “do you know…” form and told anecdotes largely of the folk wisdom variety. Are we yoga practitioners? Do we…