“[T]he more a man becomes dependent on the gadgets whose smooth functioning assures him a tolerable life at the material level, the more estranged he becomes from an awareness of his inner reality.”
Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society (1952)
Originality does not consist in
saying what no one
has ever said before,
but in saying exactly what
you think yourself.
–James Stephens
Summer, 2009. Phoenix, AZ
I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles. There, the fact of life that struck me hardest was not the traffic, though it was mostly horrendous; not the weather, which stood in wonderful contrast to that where I live; not the view of the Pacific Ocean from Santa Monica, which [...]
Of all human traits, perhaps the most common is misunderstanding—that we often assume we understand what we actually don’t, and act on the assumption.
TS