CALL ME MAGGIE

Perennial Philosophy

  • 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

    Care-Free Wandering (Zhuangzi)

  • 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

    Mountain dog school for living philosophy

  • 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

    Responsive to skillful attention

  • 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

    Showing-Up for Emptiness: Excellence Between Obsession and Apathy

  • 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

    A Fourfold for the Current Empire

  • 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

    Whispering New Directions

  • 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

    The Limits of Jaspersian Patience

  • Anti-Reason in Our Times: The Renaissance of White Supremacy

    Karl Jaspers warns in “Reason and Anti-Reason in Our Time” (1952) of the unphilosophical spirit that favors comforting myths over uncomfortable truths. Contemporary white supremacist movements exemplify this “anti-reason,” exhibiting ideological rigidity and rejecting dialogue. Through the Browning’s work, “The… Continue reading

    Anti-Reason in Our Times: The Renaissance of White Supremacy

  • 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

  • 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

    Philosophical Faith in the World: Neither Sinner nor Consumer

  • Reversion, Reconciliation, and Restoration: Toward Tranquility in the Current Empire

    Looking Back Almost twenty years ago, I began troubling the word peace. Like many of us, I had long imagined peace as the cessation of violence, the arrival of stillness, the mutual exhale after the fire. But something in the… Continue reading

    Reversion, Reconciliation, and Restoration: Toward Tranquility in the Current Empire

  • Siren Song Society: Profound Boredom – Authentic Leisure – Existential Liberation

    offer these connections to encourage people to be okay with boredom–to not see every break in labor or in study or in whatever as requiring us to find something to amuse ourselves into utter alienated distraction. Continue reading

    Siren Song Society: Profound Boredom – Authentic Leisure – Existential Liberation

  • Seneca and Existenz Part 2

    Second part of my considerations comparing/contrasting Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life with philosophers of existence… in this episode, more specifically with five figures I consider poets of existence: Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, André Gide, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia… Continue reading

    Seneca and Existenz Part 2

  • Encompassing – Bright Truth – Wonderful

    This is a song that I started singing a few days before my dissertation defense as I walked around my neighborhood in the early morning. I think the tune goes back to when I was in the Seminary? I know… Continue reading

  • The Devil and Thomas Jefferson

    America is ruled by Mammon wearing the skin of Christian Nationalist Jesus. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost… Continue reading

    The Devil and Thomas Jefferson