Sunday, July 20, 2025
Forging Forms
When the form's forlorn,
And the norm's outworn,
Imagination ignites,
Dispelling all plights.
No matter its mass,
No chatter can pass.
From void it does veer,
With joy it holds dear.
A truth unforeseen,
A youth ever green.
The idea's ascent,
By deity's rent.
A thought is set free,
As naught else can be.
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Friday, July 18, 2025
The Great Divide: Are There Two Kinds of Men?
tl;dr: Men often embody two core archetypes: the strategic, adaptable Architect (think Hamilton, Pericles) who builds and designs systems, and the principled, unyielding Cornerstone (Crockett, Socrates) who stands on authentic truth. They profoundly misunderstand each other, fueling societal friction, but both are indispensable for progress and stability. Understanding this ancient divide is key to bridging modern gaps.
True freedom declines
Two paths diverged in a wood, no less,
And I, well, I just said, "Oh, what a mess."
For choice, a tyrant, loudly cries its sway,
But true brave souls just turn and walk away.
The forks multiplied, a geometric dread,
Each promising worlds, half-formed in my head.
But courage, silent, saw the endless plight,
And claimed its peace by stepping from the light.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Form shifting is a leadership virtue
A boss who thought "my way or none!"
Saw his group simply getting undone.
Then he shifted his style,
With a knowing, kind smile,
And each person excelled, one by one.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
There are thoughts that are too dangerous to be allowed to spread
You who raise the young,
With lessons yet un-sung,
Don't teach your children bitter ways,
The thoughts that fuel these broken days.
No tales of hate, no whispers low,
That brand a soul for what they know
Or how they look, or where they kneel,
Or pains that other people feel.
Don't show them walls where bridges stand,
Nor borders drawn across the land
Of shared humanity's wide grace,
Nor darkness in a brother's face.
For some beliefs, once given flight,
Will blot out stars and steal the light.
So guide their minds, but hold the key,
To thoughts that chain and make not free.
Don't teach your children ill, my friend,
Or where such twisted paths must end.
Examples
Here are some specific examples of "bad ideas" (trigger alert):
"My race/religion/nation/gender is inherently superior and others are inferior."
"Child sexual abuse is a private matter or a legitimate practice."
"Torture is an acceptable and effective tool for interrogation or punishment."
"The systematic murder of a specific group of people is necessary for societal purity."
"Denying proven historical atrocities (e.g., the Holocaust) is a valid intellectual position."
"Blind, unquestioning obedience to authority is always the highest virtue, regardless of the act commanded."
"All scientific knowledge is a conspiracy and should be rejected."
"Spreading deadly contagions intentionally is an acceptable form of warfare or protest."
"The Earth's resources are infinite and can be exploited indefinitely without consequence."
"The only valid form of human existence is my own, and all other ways of life should be eradicated."
"It is acceptable to destroy the entire planet to win a conflict or achieve a single objective."
"Subjective personal feelings override all objective reality and shared truth."
"Consciousness is irrelevant, and suffering has no moral weight."
"Rape is a natural expression of desire, not a crime."
"The total annihilation of all sentient life is the logical end-goal of existence."
Note to those who read this far: The emphasis on universal human rights, scientific truth, environmental limits, and equality are cornerstones of liberal thought. Conversely, the specific "bad ideas" on the list (supremacy, totalitarian control, deliberate environmental destruction, rejection of objective truth) often find their most explicit and dangerous expression within extremist right-wing, authoritarian, or nihilistic ideologies.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Friday, July 11, 2025
Anxiety is often the echo of inherited trauma
Imagine the lives of those painted ancestors. The soldier likely faced the horrors of war. The man in armor, the brutality of ancient combat. Each, in their time, endured struggles, deprivations, losses, and perhaps even persecutions that left deep scars. These aren't just historical footnotes; they are deeply ingrained experiences that, according to this idea, can ripple through generations. It's almost as if the very air in that ancestral home, and within the man himself, carries the ghost of their suffering.
Epigenetics suggests that environmental factors, including severe stress and trauma, can actually cause changes in gene expression without altering the underlying DNA sequence. These "epigenetic tags" can then be passed down through generations. So, in a very real, biological sense, the trauma of your great-grandparent could potentially influence your own predisposition to anxiety, even if you never directly experienced their suffering. It's as if their body 'remembered' the trauma, and passed that 'memory' on.
If a family or a community has experienced profound collective trauma – war, famine, displacement, persecution – the coping mechanisms, fears, and even the silence surrounding those events can be unconsciously transmitted. Children absorb the unspoken anxieties of their parents, the caution born of past hardship, and the emotional patterns that emerged as survival strategies. This can manifest as generalized anxiety, a pervasive sense of unease, or specific phobias that seem to have no direct personal origin. It's the weight of untold stories, the unwept tears.
Philosophically, this touches on themes of legacy, fate, and the interconnectedness of human experience. It challenges the purely individualistic view of mental health, suggesting that we are not entirely self-contained islands of anxiety. Instead, we are nodes in a vast, intergenerational network of experience. It prompts us to consider how much of "us" is truly "us," and how much is an echo of those who came before. It’s a call to understand our roots, not just for genealogical curiosity, but for psychological liberation.
In an earlier aphorism i asked "What keeps us from mending all the torn families?" We have few systems that effectively address these kinds of health issues. And we doom our children to suffering by not mending more families.