Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain’s crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And [...]

What you’re seeing there is the first panel from a strip in Feiffer’s Explainers. Click to read the rest of the strip. Then marvel at how exactly on point is appears to be for the current world (OK, that reference to the Soviets needs to point to China or somewhere, but setting that aside), considering [...]

Earlier today I ran into this passage in the course of my wanderings: From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to [...]

Better to have a good story than a good time. Bad life experiences often end up great material for stories. Good times are often forgotten. —Jonathan Carroll

The one-armed man walks into a flower shop And says: What flower expresses Days go by And they just keep going by endlessly Pulling you Into the future Days go by Endlessly Endlessly pulling you Into the future?

Spotted on Jonathan Carroll’s blog today: “The secret of life,” said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, “is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot [...]

I got into a huge debate today about the distinction between religion and spirituality, and the relative worth of the two concepts. Instead of boring you with more of my cocky atheism, I’ll just quote a Zen story that I think captures the whole thing: The Real Miracle When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, [...]

Yes, that’s right, I’m going to the meme well again. This time for Andrew Wheeler’s Omnivore’s Hundred (which I’ve seen a lot of places, but first saw at the other Andrew Wheeler’s blog.). I think the “expected” result, in so far as there is one, is that people would find there are lots and lots [...]

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never. —Søren Kierkegaard Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on [...]

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of suffering. —Thomas Merton Life is thick sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to [...]

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. —Edgar Allen Poe Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. —John Locke, Of Reading Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, [...]

When I was a student, in the days before I had covered my walls with art, I used to decorate with words. I would take those cheap 8.5 x 11 frames you could buy at the grocery store, and fill them with nicely formatted blocks of text–poems, quotes, things like that. I’ve always liked to [...]

I knew it all along, but it’s nice to have some science to back it up Spending on Happiness — HBS Working Knowledge Can money buy you happiness? Yes—so long as you spend the money on someone else. According to new research, giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being [...]

That’s a sample page from a book I’m really enjoying reading at the moment: The Explainers by Jules Feiffer. (You can see some other sample pages at The Comics Reporter, or even cooler check out the slideshow on Flickr.) Here’s how the publisher describes the book: In 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name [...]