The Second

Actions not speeches declare the content of a soul.   My actions, my way of life has followed a template, on balance, of the decent civilized man.   This is not to say that I am decent in any deep and moral sense.   Rather it means that I can check some boxes on a list of things associated with being civilized and decent.   I have worked in a respectable career—as our society counts respect; have earned money, by which to house my family; raised (or supported my wife’s raising of) civil children; funded some people in charitable work.   I think I’ve tried, and know I’ve fallen short, to do what Jesus and the Apostles taught.   But in the end, I see myself as having a basic civilized decency.   I have tried to repent of my secret sins and weaknesses; tried not to be a slave to my appetites, but with weak, inconsistent effort.   What, in short, is this way of life? If I have accomplished anything, about the best I can say is, I’ve fulfilled my f...

Brilliant minds chew on the great human questions: how should we find meaning? How should we order our lives together? What are the essential and real qualities of being human, and what does that imply for what we do?   And, although answers vary, one dominant, modern idea informs most of the modern answers: Human beings emerged through time on a continuum with everything else, from non-life to life, from non-consciousness to consciousness, from practical survival behaviors to morality, from awareness to self-awareness, from awe to religion, from irrational to rational.   In short, to say that man evolved from the lower animals is to say something mundane, like saying the earth is round. This now commonplace theory of origins has found renewed energy in the teachings of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, whose essential message is that of acquiring virtue.   Unlike traditional treatments—ancient wisdom, religious teaching and practice—Peterson’s is grounded in a remarkably broad...

Efficiency.  That is an important word in our times.  You can’t avoid it.  Surely you have heard about “Cyber Monday”.  Where “Black Friday” had become a byword of a consumerist culture, “Cyber Monday” is a byword of the now culture, which is consumerism on steroids!  Further convenience is not merely a want but an expectation, an assumed reality.  But convenience comes at a price, which is paid in the efforts for efficiency.  What are examples of these efforts, and what the price? To be efficient, one must always be concerned about time and the quantity of production.  So Cyber Monday is by far an improvement on Black Friday if for no other reason than a greater mass of goods can be purchased in a shorter amount of time.  But the conservation of time, as a concept, as an instinct, shows up in unexpected ways.  When the hourly who reports to you has an issue and grabs  your attention as you’re passing through, do you stop and give...