Life 101, A Wise Man's Advice for Adulthood

If a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe a drawing can save a lot of unnecessary verbosity, a drawing that will provide a simple image to portray the arena in which we live out our entire lives.  The figure that I propose is that of an unfinished triangle.  I call it " eternal " which means that it is basic to all of us lifelong.   It arises from the fact that our lives are described by three relationships. Our lives are, in fact, impossible without them. It is out of a relationship that all of us are born and it is in relationship that we become and remain human.  It is also in relationship with the surrounding physical world that we continue to survive.  Moreover, it is in  relationship with something we consider to be " ultimate ", something beyond every thing else (whether or not we call it " God ")  that we continue to live what we consider to be a " meaningful " life.  This context of relationships provides the arena in which our lives...

There is a report that Daniel Boone was once asked if he'd ever gotten lost. "Lost?" he said. "No. never. I was once mighty confused for about three weeks, but never lost." If we are not lost in this fast-changing world at least we are confused In discussing relativity I said that it's the word "absolute" that is being called into question. Everything is so "on the move" that there seem to be no fixed points, no objective standards. So a word that's come into increasing use to describe this increasing ephemeral quality of life is "LIQUIDITY." It is a metaphor for the world around us. Sociologist Sigmund Baumann speaks of "liquid modernity" by which he contrasts the present with the "old days" which were more solid. In those days people built cathedrals and value was placed on things that were permanent, established. But that's true no more. (We can't even guarantee the permanence of the World Tr...

"Everyone has a right to his own opinions, but no one has a right to his own facts." The word " relativism " simply refers to the fact that whatever we see or know or understand is relative to the place where we stand, with all the partiality and limitation that stance implies. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is with a drawing: Any intelligent person would refer to that as a circle.  But when viewing it from all possible directions it appears, rather, to be a ball.  But every apparent circle is not a ball.  Something that may appear to be a circle or a ball may, in fact, be the base of a cylinder.  Or a different observer may see it to be the base of a cone. Written history is a good example.  We hear reference to "historical relativism" which simply means that the American Revolution,  described respectively by American, British and Canadian historians might be written differently.  Of course historians seek to be entirely objective....