Month: April 2015

• April 30, 2015

  Why Everyone is Sad yet Nobody Angry

  Have you noticed that, by and large, few people get angry today? That few stand up for themselves and lash out? Get irritated? Yes. Ornery? Sure. Persnickety? No doubt. But blood boiling? No. Have you also noticed how most people get–and are–really sad? They have the blues, they’re in a foul mood, they’re down in the…
• April 29, 2015

  The Post-Martial Orientation: Cultivating Toughness

  Long the pride of place among the educated, compassion, empathy, and presentness are giving way to a completely different order of supreme virtues. This is because, at a more general level, the post-religious outlook is being supplanted by a post-martial outlook. It has to be so, since history is uncompromising. This is what I see. The post-martial…
• April 27, 2015

  Sentimentality or Dangerous Love?

  Love of a lover is not a mere affection, sentiment, or passion. Affections come, sentiments disappear, passions wane. Yet love, insofar as it is love, not only resides but also grows. Emotions perish, love endures. Furthermore, love of a lover is a religious concept. I devote myself to my lover, with this commitment not being a prison cell or an obligation…
• April 24, 2015

  Enough with Niceness

  This morning my philosophical friend said, ‘We keep calling spade a feather. Let’s call a spade a spade. We need to dig into the truth. The truth is rude and blunt. Truth empties out all the bullshit.’ One colleague told me recently, ‘Religion is not nice.’ I told this to my philosophical friend and she replied, ‘That’s true.…
• April 23, 2015

  Stop Holding Back!

  Stop holding back! Just stop it! Stop giving up, giving in, shrinking back. Just–just stop with all the restraining! (We need retraining in overcoming restraining. Well, better go get a high paid consultant. Or some facilitator to ‘open the space’ and ‘hold the space’ and ‘take us through a process.’ Go on: can we finally admit…