Category: philosophical counseling

• May 29, 2012

  On having needs and making requests – Part 1

  I As social animals, we have needs and desires. Part of growing up involves learning how to fulfill more of our needs and desires without the aid of others. The other part involves learning that some of our needs can only be fulfilled by others. Here is where social life gets interesting and quite often…
• May 28, 2012

  If I could not touch, could I be touched?

  This morning I lay in bed, looking at my hand. I extend the web, I turn it over, I hold it up to the sky. It is tanned and fleshy and the freshly laundered sheets are very white again. I grind coffee beans with my hand mill. I put the spoon into the bowl, then…
• May 26, 2012

  The good camera and the stillness of transience

  Dearest C, I am looking at your photos. You have such a good eye for these quiet moments that open in the midst of all else. I think what all your photos share–not just these but all those you’ve shown me–is a sense of wonderment and a meditative eye for what is just now coming…
• May 25, 2012

  The teapot in the coffee shop

  I noticed the texture first, the graininess, that is. Then the color or rather colors, especially the white light coming from the viewer’s far left, the lantern lit up like a gig lamp. Then the wooden chairs with their swooping, semicircular backs. And finally, behind the traced-out line, my eye came to rest on the…
• May 24, 2012

  A philosophical guide to transitions: 2nd draft

  First off, Dark Mountain is now seeking funding for the publication of its third book. Paul Kingsnorth speaks well about the project in this 3 min. video. Second off, I am including a second draft below on making the transition into philosophical life. Conversation partners: I hope you find the revision useful. More soon. — 1.…