I wrote recently about the strange phenomenon of an individual’s pride related to one’s birth. I guess it’s not really strange. The lie that one derives value from their place, time or region of birth has been perpetuated since the beginning of history. The stories of clans, castes and dynasties are legion. I am aware that ascribed status is a norm of human history and those with money and power rule. The pride thing just seems dumb. I think of the Braveheart story and William Wallace asking Robert the Bruce, a “noble,” “What really makes a man noble?” At another...
It was somewhere around December 2015 that I created the Facebook page for my writings under Open Wound. My life had encountered a sea change and I had the uncontrollable urge to share my thoughts. My close friends had experienced my litany of thoughts and ideas about life and encouraged me to open them up to others. Since then I’ve had many tell me they had similar desires to write but didn’t know where to start. My start included years of rambling journal entries, and many personal study programs on how to manage my interior life. A friend recently sent...
The Preamble of the Constitution states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” makes me ask: What does it really mean to secure the blessings of liberty? Or rather, what are the blessings of liberty? The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their...
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