Month: April 2013
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Knocking one hell of a squeeze out of life
John O’Donohue: What would you say about the whole thing now that you’re about to leave it? [And this big roguish smile crossed his visage.] The Man on his Deathbed: By Jesus, I knocked a hell of a squeeze out of it. The Irishman’s words are goodness lifted into beauty. It is the light humor exemplified…
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Hurry up: A parable
Two men spend exactly two minutes looking at the cross section of a cutdown tree. Both men have the same sensory equipment (eyes, ears, tongues, etc.). Both have the same cognitive equipment (capacity for concentrating, attending, inferring, etc.). Both are walking at the same rate and that rate is such as not to prove laborious…
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Discerning ‘when it’s time’
No one can tell you ‘when it’s time,’ but you must become discerning. Pick up clues. Amass them. Clues are not grains of sand. Discern when they amount to something and when to nothing. Then–go to!–change yourself or change course. Make haste lest you slink into retreat. You think I am telling you ‘when it’s…
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Nagel on Aristotle on identifying with the ‘highest part of ourselves’
What is the ergon of human beings, asks Thomas Nagel in his essay on Aristotle’s eudaimonia, for the answer to the question of how to live hangs on this. The ergon (function) of the hammer is to pound in nails; a poor hammer may be too heavy to wield, too flimsy, too poor at pound…
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The magical coat room
You hand the man your ticket but either the ticket, which looks pretty ratty, coincides with some other performance, or else its matching partner to this performance is nowhere to be found. Either way, your coat is gone and the coat check man has no recollection of having seen the coat you describe. Try as…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 
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