Author: Paul

There’s no virtue in suffering itself, but suffering is required if you want to be more than mundane. If you can’t accept suffering, anyone with a pin and a threat owns you. So, let’s be clear on this: Living in any way except the one prescribed by authority requires suffering. Continue reading “Suffering Is Required”

There are a large number of people have been waiting for a full-spectrum, apocalyptic crash of the Western system. I maintain that it won’t happen. And I hope to convince you that I’m right.

Not that an apocalypse doesn’t have great dramatic appeal, of course…

Continue reading “Why You Shouldn’t Believe In A Full-Spectrum Crash”

Sadly, there are fairly few people left who understand what the Hippies were really about. Mostly people remember the Hollywood version: pot-smoking, political protesting and clumsy dancing. The actual Hippies, especially the early Hippies, were a much different group. They were interesting and brave people: people very much worth remembering. Continue reading “The Wisdom Of The Hippies”

There is a simple fact that people are unable to ingest. You can explain it with charts, graphs and documentation… and they may even like the sound of it… but it soon fades and is forgotten.

This truth is simply too foreign to us; it doesn’t fit within our mental universe. Most of us don’t particularly fight it, but we’re very slow to integrate it. Continue reading “The Truth We Can’t Accept”

We can call this one an experiment..

The life that has been gifted to us is old… more than 6,000 years old. It began before recorded time, on the plains of Mesopotamia. There it was that the race of men was regimented; it was there that they learned to be ruled. Continue reading “6,000 Years On The Wheel”

Things have begun turning around, but I’m leaving this up. 

Christianity, as people in their 60s and 70s have observed, was pushed off the public stages of the West over the past two generations. At this point, whoever speaks well of it in such places must be prepared to absorb blows. Continue reading “The West’s New Faith”

One of my entertainments, from time to time, has been the Kennedy assassination… John Kennedy’s, that is. I’m not particularly a fan of mysteries, but once in a while one of them intrigues me.

What I’m going to show you today are two images from a CBS News Special Report from 1967, filmed and broadcast because so many people had failed to believe the Warren Report. I’m quite sure they didn’t realize they were making their esteemed report ridiculous, but they did just the same. Continue reading “Demolishing The Warren Report”

“Love one another.” You hear it all the time. But while it’s nice that it’s said, people don’t do it terribly well. It’s a hard thing for them to hold in mind. They can get serious about it from time to time (and again, a good thing), but doing it consistently remains elusive.

I think this deserves a moment of our time… if for nothing else than to work through some hypocrisy. Continue reading “Why “Love One Another” Is Easy To Say But Hard To Do”

Everything we do changes the world, of course, and I remain a strong advocate for kindness. Nonetheless, we need to face the fact that the children’s book version of “be kind and change the world” hasn’t worked. Wars and crime proceed as they have since the Bronze Age, and long years of promoting “be kind” hasn’t changed the situation. Continue reading “Why Kindness Doesn’t Change The World”