Upon careful consideration, it has been determined that existence is a lot like a bag of Lays potato chips.  Both are ultimately empty.

As a corollary, Lays potato chips are also a lot like individual existences.  You can't have just one.

It occurred to me recently, that from the perspective of spiritual growth, and more importantly the avoidance of corrupting influences, it is a truly rare individual that is capable of providing spiritual guidance to others.  Indeed, those who are in a position to provide spiritual guidance to others are at much greater risk for "corruption" than ( Read more... )

Perhaps as a response to all the cheering and shouting that I encounter online about the latest Superman movie to come out, I am reminded of exactly how much I dislike the idea of Superman.

I simply do not see the entertainment value in watching a character who can be readily characterized as “the unstoppable force” deal with some manner of evil. ( Read more... )

I'm starting a photo journal over at wushieyes, here is an example of what I will be uploading there very very sporadically.


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I was engaged in a discussion of politics and economics with someone a while back, and they, being of an older generation, asked me "where is your generation?  why aren't they out in the streets protesting, complaining, anything?"  It was an unintentionally ironic question because this was just after a major protest in Washington DC had failed to ( Read more... )

I am very discomfitted to this day with the term "homeland".  I find the useage of such a term in our national lexicon rather strange, as except for a few noteable exceptions this home is decidedly not our "ancestral" home.  Of course, those who would defend the usage of the term will say that since we live here now, and it is certainly the land ( Read more... )

I let my computer throw up whatever songs it wants while I'm working, and it threw up a rather old Savage Garden song called Affirmation.  The song is essentially a list of what the songwriter believes.  While the song is excessively happy and cheerful, it got me thinking that a list of some of the things I believe, especially the important ones ( Read more... )

A few months ago, I got my hands on a book titled Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking by Rick Curry. The book was wonderful, and while I had some frustrations when it came to my first few attempts at bread from scratch (yeast is so temperamental) following the instructions to the letter really helped me expand my cooking repetoire, with delicious results ( Read more... )

When I was a kid I used to study Tae Kwon Do, and was always amazed at how strong, capable, and poised our head instructor, Anthony, was. He was a third degree black belt, though I don't recall the federation, ITF I think, and I had this notion in my head that being a black belt (as I was impressed with all of them at that school) was some kind of ( Read more... )

I was reading a website recently on the realities of self defense as they differ from what martial arts teach in a classroom setting. The author breaks up martial arts into two aspects, martial techniques and martial culture. I find the idea intriguing and wanted to examine such an idea further ( Read more... )