It wakes you in the wee hours when you want only to sleep, whispers in your ear while you celebrate yet another milestone birthday, gazes up at you from earth or urn when you say good-bye to yet another loved one. It is the question that has haunted every self-aware human since the dawn of [...]

Most of us are eager for our kids to be happy. We focus on creating happiness in them, guide them toward adult paths we believe will lead to happiness, and give them pep talks (or employ other antidotes) when they’re down so that they may return as quickly as possible to a state of happiness. [...]

Am currently buried in an astonishing, Pulitzer-winning book Barbara Kingsolver rightfully described as "Monumental - a gigantic fable of genuine truths." The book tells the story of nine very different people who converge at story's end, courtesy their unique discovery of human life as part of - rather than central to - the natural world. The [...]

Just finished reading all about the Nxivm sex slave trial. Before that, we were captivated by the Netflix series on sexual abuse (and perhaps murder) involving the Baltimore diocese of the Catholic church. Prior to that was the equally compelling documentary series on the Oshi cult in Oregon. What all of the folks involved have in [...]

Each of us knows that person who is thin-skinned, hypersensitive, forever waiting for his/her buttons to be pushed, right? Of course you do. He/she gazes back at you in the mirror each day. Ah yes, you think, no doubt in a magnanimous spirit, I suppose I can be a bit sensitive on some issues. But [...]

A few words on coincidence, kismet, synchronicity - those curious little breadcrumbs some higher intelligence seemingly sprinkles throughout our lives in hopes, I suppose, of leading us to a greater truth. Mostly because I've experienced both, I've come to suspect there are two forms of these little miracles: one is of the painful variety, the [...]

We imagine that the so-called 'spiritual path' is principally reserved for the world's sufferers. The miserable set out to find themselves or the truth or God or whatever, so that they can put an end to their suffering and get back to the business of living life. That was more or less the mindset of [...]

In case you missed it, the planet’s insects have now joined the planet's other animal groups, its rainforests and oceans, its climate and mammals, in a catastrophic collapse that puts the entire biosphere (aka life on Earth) at risk. By now you no doubt know the routine: humankind sets out to 'fix' a problem - in [...]

If you really stop to think about it, to whittle down human existence to its rawest essence, each of us has but one of two choices to make: invest our lives in the outside world, or turn inward to find the source of the one said to be experiencing that world (and itself in it). [...]

Self-confidence. Self-loathing. Key measuring sticks by which we measure human happiness or misery, success or failure. We eschew self-loathing, but we aspire to self-confidence, self-esteem, self-love. And what we really want (but shhhh, don't admit it, since that would make us look bad), is to stand just a little taller than the neighbor, to make more [...]