The Short Version

I had a mildly traumatic experience in the Westfield Plaza Food Court a couple of days ago, and it’s been reverberating with me ever since. I was having my usual Roadhouse salad with chicken, minus the onion rings, and was … [Read more...]

As I was making my bed this morning, I found myself feeling sad about Cathy, a friend of mine who had died young. She’d been a delightful person to be around, and it seemed she’d been removed from the world much too soon. Why … [Read more...]

This morning when I opened the blinds in my bedroom, what first caught my attention was the breeze-induced movement of the fronds of the palm tree that’s intent on dominating my view. The more flexible tips with their thin, … [Read more...]

Sorting through all the contradictions and nebulous references in this book is probably a better exercise for your brain than Sudoku, and it would take a sizable book to unravel them all. I’ll scratch the surface to give you … [Read more...]

I watched a great video by Sam Harris on “Death and the Present Moment,” a valiant attempt to find consolation in the face of death that might replace the consolation people find in religion, but without believing anything … [Read more...]

Trying to understand how it is that our experience of our self derives from the brain is an involved, intricate subject, because, after all, that’s where we live. The brain is what makes us and our experience, and trying to … [Read more...]

  I woke up this morning and began my usual routine—washing my face, drinking tea, etc.—but it soon became clear that something was different, or at least it felt different. It felt like I was watching myself perform … [Read more...]

I have a friend whose health has been wrecked by multiple addictions and ignorance. I was lucky enough to have my own addictions removed before my physical health suffered much—my mental health was undermined enough to get me … [Read more...]

Many people come to the realization that they don’t have free will and mistakenly conclude there’s nothing they can do about it, so forget it and get on with life. They don’t realize that even though the feeling of having … [Read more...]

For a few seconds this morning, I had the odd and distressing feeling of being trapped in my own brain; a victim of invisible forces, shuttled from one experience to another at the whim of incomprehensible neural machinery. I … [Read more...]