A life in words

  • Forests Real and Imagined

    Forests. Lots of plants, big and small, living together on land. Animals dwell there. Hunters hunt there. Recluses and far-away grandmas live in cabins there. How many fairytales take place in a forest? How many books you’ve read? Is the forest good, evil, or both or neither? When was the last time you sat on…

  • Susan

    I keep postponing this post, but the postponed, post-pondering, shall now be posted! By the way, thanks to everyone who reads this blog and comments on it. I’m not so sure I would read this stuff if one of my friends was putting it out; you all are very good to me. Okay, here goes….…

  • A Happy Feeling

    I don’t know why, but I’ve had a happy feeling in my heart the last few days. Whenever that happens I wonder, “Why do I feel this way?” I never really find an exact reason, but of course it still makes me feel glad. Here’s one cool thing: I turned off the little thing that…

Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character….Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus V.4, 1670, trans. A. H. Gosset 1883