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Fear and Trust: My Experience with Parable of the Sower and Braiding Sweetgrass
Last week I had a very difficult experience reading the Parable of the Sower. For anyone who would like to read the book, read at your own caution because I am going to discuss it in general terms. Mainly it’s going to be centered around the general topics discussed and the tone and perspective of…
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Luck or Suffering: Homer’s Enemy
Last night I was told a poignant parable listing the pitfalls inherent to martyrdom. The noble martyr and the clueless buffoon face off in a fight to the death. The martyr sacrifices himself to destroy the buffoon’s, and the buffoon wins without ever lifting a hand in defense. It had all the nuance of an…
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The Night Circus: We Are Mirrors
I am very much enjoying the book the Night Circus by Erin Morganstern. It is a fantasy set in the late 1800’s through the turn of the century. The book is a smokey enigmatic sort of story, with unfinished scenes and plenty of room for intrigue. The characterization is my favorite sort, show-don’t-tell, with information…
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Math in America
When I was a child learning math, I felt like I was walking through fog. Each step would present itself, smoky and hazy out of the mist, with the rest of the path obscured. My teacher would say “Today we learn addition, everyone repeat after me.” I would listen for a few days, and then…
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My Stroke of Insight: My Insights
Yesterday I finished “My Stroke of Insight” and I just want to put it on my list of 100% recommend regardless of who or what you are. Great book. Now it irritates me when people give vague blanket support for something, so I’ll give some reasons. I am the sort of person that is very…
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Low-Budget Remake of The Birds
This morning we woke up after sleeping from about 4-11:00 AM. I might have been a little hypomanic. We went over to my parents house, and had lovely collards and black eyed peas and sausage and corn bread. After lunch we went for a walk. The weather was overcast and a pleasant 70 degrees. We…
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2023: The Year of the Trickster
Ever since I read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, I have taken a lot of what she said to heart. The purpose of the book was to discuss the perspectives people take on their art and creativity. One of my favorite things that she wrote about was Tricksters and Martyrs. When I was a little…
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Who Would Elsa Vote For?
Last year I read a book that changed my perspective on political ideologies. It is called the Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haight, and I have read it twice now. In this book he describes the thoughts and tendencies that then play out to create political differences between people. At the very end of the book,…
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: My Own Invisibility
I’ve been reading the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and I don’t know that I’ve read too many other characters in my life that were so much like me. She grows up as a strange child in France, learning to draw in charcoal. She develops a deep fear of marriage and motherhood. She shuns the…
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Perspective: Suffering is Optional
So today I heard of Camus’s theory of absurdism and I loved it. It fits well with Gilbert’s view of Tricksters and trickster energy. I had no idea someone had laid out my philosophy before. The meaning of life, the eventual necessity of death, creates a conflict within us all. Not only is our own…