Category: philosophical counseling

• 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…
• July 9, 2012

  And when…

  When does silence come and when do the right words come? When does life come and when death? When do the church bells ring, when roll the air, when cease to ring? When do your needs begin and mine end or mine begin and yours end? When do we sit in solitude and when do…
• July 7, 2012

  Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, no. 46

  Sit awhile wayfarer, Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink, But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will certainly kiss you with my goodbye kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.   Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams, Now I wash the…