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Care-Free Wandering (Zhuangzi)
[PREVIOUS] Responsive to Skillful Attention Following the river where it bends—not because rivers knowbut because bending is what rivers dowhen they meet the unmovable. After months of decluttering awareness through Nagarjuna’s emptiness and learning to show up with skillful attention,… Continue reading
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Adrift in the Ether with AI: Reasoning is Relating
Our relation to AI may be less about aligning its outputs to “human values” and more about guarding our own capacity for critical examination. This involves relational reflections that forestall premature closure for instrumental certainty. But more fundamentally, prolonged interaction… Continue reading
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Mountain dog school for living philosophy
The Mountain Dog School for Living Philosophy promotes philosophy as a way of life, inviting individuals from diverse backgrounds to explore existential questions through dialogue and reflection. Its mission emphasizes personal engagement in philosophizing, fostering authenticity, self-actualization, and meaningful relationships… Continue reading
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Responsive to skillful attention
The concept of discernment is vital for cultivating awareness, as it involves skillfully distinguishing experiences without over-determining or under-determining. This harmonizes extremes to avoid the fall into nihilism and eternalism. Simultaneously, it reawakens the empty yet interconnected nature of all… Continue reading
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Showing-Up for Emptiness: Excellence Between Obsession and Apathy
The concept of “showing-up” emphasizes active existence over passive presence. It involves intentional engagement with the world, others, and oneself. By exploring the balance between appetite, emotion, and intellect through the lens of askēsis, individuals can cultivate a deeper, responsive… Continue reading
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Decluttering Awareness: Nagarjuna and Emptiness
Nāgārjuna’s thinkering dives into emptiness to abandon how we cling to rigid views, which just messes with our understanding of reality. He shows that everything arises through dependence and encourages us to let go of fixed beliefs, which can lead… Continue reading
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A Fourfold for the Current Empire
I explore the concept of “transistance,” a practice of navigating life’s complexities without adhering to rigid frameworks. It emphasizes the importance of embracing ambiguity and interdependence, while rejecting traditional revolutionary approaches. I propose it is a first step of a… Continue reading
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Whispering New Directions
The text explores the concept of the practical spirit, emphasizing three modes: contemplative, scientific, and operative. It critiques the dominance of operationalism in modern society, linking it to systemic dehumanization. I advocatesfor “transistance” to navigate beyond established orientations and connect… Continue reading
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where eternity’s shadow slinks
walking about myneighborhood listeningas Debussy fillsthe day with nocturnes scurrying squirrelsleap toward safetyfrom the old thinkerplodding on along is there more bird song?do feathered cousinswhistling and chirpingapprove these preludes? a bee knocks my handon way to freshlyplanted flowerbedgathering pollenalong the… Continue reading
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The Limits of Jaspersian Patience
Philosophical faith and dialogue might seem hopelessly inadequate. “Playing the long game” can also feel inadequate when people are being threatened, disappeared, or killed. Here I attempt to outline why Jaspers was no fool about this. Continue reading
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Haibun 06Jul25: Reading, Authority, and Reason
When I was young, I thought books were keys to the vault of answers. If I read enough, deeply enough, I’d know what to think. I mistook tradition for commandment. Decades later, I sit among these same volumes—dog-eared, underlined, marked… Continue reading
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Seeing Through the Force
I. Introduction: The Aesthetic Judgment Within* “The soul is not a unity. It is a field of tensions — of seeing, feeling, and wanting. The work of judgment is not to conquer these parts, but to bring them into resonance.”—… Continue reading
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Heresy in the Guise of Tradition: A Queer Prodigal Son Reflects on MAGA Traditionalism
Pope Leo XIV’s election signifies a pivotal moment in the Church, yet reactionary American Catholics criticize him as insufficiently traditional. They embody a heresy that distorts Gospel values, prioritizing power over compassion. This discourse urges a return to true Catholic… Continue reading
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Philosophical Faith in the World: Neither Sinner nor Consumer
Karl Jaspers small text provides us in 2025 with a manual of quiet defiance. For queer and other marginalized thinkers, educators, counselors, and all who remain exposed in the neoliberal storm winds, Jaspers offers us Way to reassert the soft power… Continue reading
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Neoliberalism: The Operating System of the Society of Control
Neoliberalism, emerging as a reaction against Keynesian policies, transforms social life through market logic, individual responsibility, and state facilitation of capital. It prioritizes deregulation, privatization, and austerity, reframing citizens as entrepreneurial actors. In Texas, neoliberal policies since the 1990s have… Continue reading
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The Current Empire
Unlike classical empires, the Current Empire no longer needs grand narratives of conquest. Instead, it extends its reach through bureaucratic normalization, algorithmic feedback loops, religious-nationalist fervor, and the hollowing of democratic discourse. Continue reading
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Christian Nationalism and the Threats of Anti-Reason
READ MY NOTICE TO EXPRESS MYSELF AS A FREE ADULT CITIZEN OF THE STATE OF TEXAS On this ideology Christian Nationalism is a socio-political ideology that seeks to merge a particular interpretation of Christianity with national identity, law, and governance. At… Continue reading
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