freedom

Feeding the Worry Gene

Have you noticed how there is always something wrong? No matter how ideal circumstances are, something will go awry shortly. All this may be obvious, I suppose. What is less obvious is how the perception and experience of good fortune and misfortune are complimentary. As chapter 58 puts it, Misfortune, yet of good fortune its […]

Will-to-Live, Free or Otherwise

The drive to survive is shared by all living things from viruses on up. In some, if not all, forms of life, this plays out as a fear vs. need mediated survival instinct. Certainly, the survival instinct is a fundamental emotional drive in any animal I think of as having emotion. Naturally, there are those […]

Democracy as Myth

All social species need their ‘alpha-male’ for governance even if that’s the queen of a beehive. Being a more complex than bees, human governance is multi-layered and hierarchical to varying degrees. Indeed, the more sophisticated the culture/civilization, the more layers—the more hierarchical. Conversely, our ancestor hunter-gatherers had few, if any, layers — no courts, parliaments, […]

My Battle With Tobacco

Researcher say nicotine is as addictive as cocaine. Perhaps, but then I only know the nicotine side of this. My story has many twists and turns which come to an ironic end. If you’re in a hurry for the Taoist aspect, skim some and skip to the ending, The Long Journey’s End. I began smoking […]

Where Is Freedom?

I bought a finch in Japan in the early 70’s. I took it home and left the cage door open so it could fly around if it wished, but it wouldn’t. It just stayed contentedly in its cage. Months passed before it ventured out. I left the window open too, and soon it would go […]