Content 18+ I went out on the balcony, and suddenly I saw that stars are visible here… for me, being born in a small town squeezed between the sandy desert and steppe vastness fuelled by oil underneath, the view of the night sky full of stars was something common and familiar. I used to dream of them, trying to guess if there is a life out there. Soon after my … Read the rest
Category: Philosophy
Rise of the Future
Content 21+ Come closer, my dear friend. Take a seat in this comfortable chair. Tell me how hard it was for you to study for eight hours per day at school, how your classmates bullied you, how you were underestimated at the university and get your €1500/month underpaid job, and why it is the reason you hate others (and those nasty immigrants, of course). I will, in turn, tell how … Read the rest
That Raspberry Face
Content 18+ I can remember my undergraduate days more than a half century ago and sitting with friends until the wee hours having philosophical discussions about things like 'God'. The memory grows fuzzy, but it seems to me that we gave God at least a 50-50 chance of existing. Maybe, mixed in with the residue of an upbringing that took the reality of Heaven and Hell for granted, we were … Read the rest
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Deal With It !)
Content 21+ Mercifully, I live in Europe so I am spared — aside from what I masochistically choose to read on the various sites — the usual avalanche of American nonsense about the Christmas Holidays — and yes, I continue to refer to them pointedly as such: The Christmas Holidays.
Thanksgiving has just finished and I feel safe in imagining that millions of American people celebrated joyously in the customary … Read the rest
Man in The Low Castle
Content 18+ Once there was a man, and there was a s…sorry, employee. It was something I would call an ordinary relation based on power, even though it all began with sweets and roses.
Come closer. I am going to tell you the story which lies beyond the boss-clerk relations, the story that eventually leads to life-changing events. Probably, our hero should be grateful to this man, after all. … Read the rest
Song of Steel
Content 21+ Gasoline was burning, litres per minute. The Turbocharged monster was tearing down the road roaring over the desert, running for the sun. Black polished hood, covering the beast inside, was pan-hot - you could boil a whole pig on it.
The monster and the man were fleeing from something, and this desert was the only witness of the rush.
They didn’t care about speed limits, nor they thought … Read the rest
Desert of Reality
Content 18+ No one really remembers, who was to strike first - us or them… No one really knows.
It was really strange for me to realise one small thing, a tiny issue that most human beings are not even aware of, but one that keeps rolling around in my head. It is a thing that, even knowing, you can't explain it, you still feel it; it still gnaws at … Read the rest
How Much Hair Do You Want In Your Soup?
I sometimes wonder if eventually, we will arrive at a completely hairless civilization. I mean, think of all the cartoons and caricatures you’ve seen depicting the ‘advanced’ people of the future. Shrunken of body, their globular heads stand out like huge melons, which of course — like most melons — are completely bald. The idea is to suggest a vast intelligence throbbing inside the glimmering fruit.
Think of all the … Read the rest
The Shadowy Task Of Shedding The Mask
Content 21+ (explicit content) Sometime back in the day, I heard of a book (cynically) entitled “How to Pick Up a Feminist”. I thought it was funny. I had just come back from Europe and enrolled at FSU for yet another attempt at finally finishing off my doctoral program, and I was doing creative writing for my degree. (The ‘dissertation’ turned out to be a body of my own poetry.) … Read the rest
Two Saints: Paul and Augustine, 1967
Content 21+ It was my first plane ride, and the stewardesses had no choice but to be beautiful back in those days; it was part of the job. Even now, I can see the reason. It was to inspire confidence. Aviation was not as safe then as it supposedly is now. I have never looked at the statistics, but I do know — from my grandfather’s own account — that … Read the rest
Why Multiculturalism actually Matters. Borderless.
Content advisory 12+ We were driving in our Japanese car down the road, xenon headlights breaking the darkness. Suspension, invented by a Scotland-origin man was preventing us from jumping on the bumps. We were driving through the forest to the border through the protected zone.
Back then, in the age of tribes, being banned from your settlement was sometimes worse than a death sentence. Wild beasts, hungry hunters, … Read the rest
Why Diversity Actually Matters
Content advisory 12+ There are many talks and speeches regarding the benefits of diversity, yet really few of them truly explain why it actually matters. In short, it widens your thinking horizon, gives you the luxury of less biased choice and helps you to understand the world better; by this, you can develop yourself, because it trains your brain, it stimulates the variety of connections between neurons, which will … Read the rest
The Night I Won the Welterweight Title of the World
Content advisory 18+ I once saw a film called "Field of Dreams" which involved a man hearing a voice in a cornfield that told him what to do -- which he did -- and what happened as a result. The idea behind it was simple but profound: how can we find the past again and correct it? Or maybe better would be to ask, "How can we HEAL the past?"… Read the rest
The Sin of Men with White Skin
Content advisory 18+ You know, I read a lot of blogs posted by authors great and small, coming from all directions. One source in particular, which I won't mention by name but which in fact does publish some excellent stuff, also seems to be a haven for hard-line feminists and various other typoids and assorted specimens lumbered with a lot of sexual preference issues. Gender is a big, big … Read the rest
Not Size Zero
Content advisory 18+ In a world where we are more particular about appearances than reality, the unrealistic projection of an ideal body has amounted to a long-drawn obsession. However, it is a problem that is now being somewhat addressed as saner minds apparently prevail. Celebrities have spoken up about being “body-shamed” and “fat-shamed” and about eating disorders. The public has shunned photoshopped bodies to the degree of absurdity and appears … Read the rest
A Dummy’s Course In Deceit
Content advisory 18+ A guy was explaining to me once how to tell the perfect lie. He said it with a straight face and matter-of-fact expression, almost as if he were expounding on how you can pack the most clothes into a suitcase or the most groceries into one plastic bag at a supermarket.
Inspired by my strict moral upbringing in the Christian Church (hahaha), I felt it my duty … Read the rest
The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
Content advisory 18+ Have you ever been falsely accused of doing something bad that you positively and absolutely didn't do? How did you feel? Especially when there was no way to change the minds of those who were accusing you?
It's happened to me a few times, and I can assure you that I was outraged. In fact, I have little doubt that my violent reaction to such injustice was … Read the rest
Canned Laughter (and other falsifications)
Content advisory 18+ When I was a kid back in America and would watch the sit-coms on TV (which now leads me to reflect "Did I HAVE a life?"), I was always struck by the laughter that would erupt in the background every time someone said something that was supposed to be funny. Didn't matter if it actually WAS funny -- the knee-slapping merry-makers in the television studio ("coming to … Read the rest
All The Cheesecake in the World
Content advisory 18+ There is a longstanding question which asks us if we -- given the opportunity -- would prefer to know when we will die or instead linger in the perpetual (until the chopping block moment) suspense of NOT knowing. I haven't taken a survey, but it seems that most people would choose not to know. Me? Well, I'm not sure.
The pros and cons? Obviously, if we understood … Read the rest
World Cup: Great Party (but some unwanted guests)
Content advisory 18+ Although the 2018 World Cup can now be placed in the file of Yesterday's News (and what is deader than the headlines of the day before the day before ?), it is worth a brief look back simply as a way of saying goodbye-to-all-that.
And no matter what your take on sports in general might be-- and regardless of your politics -- I think that only the … Read the rest