No person believes that if they pray enough, God will stop bullets in the air. And no person believes that thoughts and prayers will bring their loved one back from the dead or prevent evil from rearing its ugly head.
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On Fitness
“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." -SocratesOn a recent 1800 mile road trip, I found my thoughts wandering to the state of physical fitness … Continue reading On Fitness
Lessons From Daedalus
The tale of Icarus and his wings of wax is one of the more famous classical myths. It tells of a talented Athenian craftsman named Daedalus who was trapped on the island of Crete with his son Icarus. Daedalus, you see, had built an unsolvable labyrinth to contain a beast called the Minotaur for the King of Crete near the King's palace in Knossos. When the King imprisoned the great hero Theseus in the Labyrinth to be killed by the Minotaur, Daedalus helped Theseus escape by giving him a special spool of string. For this, Daedalus and his son Icarus were themselves imprisoned within the Labyrinth.
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On Little Things
"The mind is a world onto itself and can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell." -Paradise Lost
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On Fairness
Tough. Life’s not fair.” -Dave Magness The axiom “familiarity breeds contempt” might very well trace its origins to an exhausted philosophically-minded traveller on a family vacation. As the initial excitement of the annual summer family road trip wore off, my sisters and I became fiercely territorial in our assigned domains in the family mini-van. An … Continue reading On Fairness
On Shadows
We have a shadow, says Jung. A reservoir for human darkness. A place where everything we choose not to accept about ourselves exists. Whether we acknowledge it or not, it is buried behind all the desirable aspects of our psyche. It is our 'dark side', trained and caged by societal and cultural norms. But every once in awhile, we see it manifest itself. We see it rear its ugly head.
On Hate Speech
Richard Spencer, the identitarian responsible for coining the term Alt-Right and often miscategorized as a Nazi, is not stupid. He is actually anything but. His writing and speeches lay out an intellectual, yet superficial and flawed case for his worldview that has pulled the wool over the eyes of many able-bodied young males, as evidenced by Charlottesville. He does not condone violence, but rather, wants to achieve his objectives through open discourse. Punching him in the face only makes him look more reasonable. It only lends support to the idea that he cannot be challenged intellectually, thus building his following. As much as people want to conflate their Antifa water balloon street brawl with the allies storming Normandy, it just isn't accurate.
The American Mythos
The National Anthem is one of the only songs other than the Marine Corps Hymn that gives me the chills. The story it tells of Fort McHenry reflects the deepest good of the American people. It takes a special kind of person to live for something larger than themselves. To be willing to lay down … Continue reading The American Mythos
The Destruction of the Sacred
"Nothing is Sacred," says Man. "Nothing is sacred save SCIENCE!" "We've christened Science, Omni-Science. All-knowing. Infallible. And incompatible with Religion. With ritual. With tradition. And so we've cast religion out. We've burned our Holy Books. We've made our devout, the heretics, and our heretics, the devout. We've erased the divine standard of morality. Man gives law unto … Continue reading The Destruction of the Sacred
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