Tag Archives: imagination

Friday Notes (Aug 18, 2023)

We’re about to enter a new phase of Friday Notes. I’ve cleared most of the primary pile of notes for blog posts. What remains are notes that still might lead to posts if I find the motivation. There is also a thick sheaf of much older more ambitious notes, most of which are probably past their Use-By date by now.

The destiny of that thick sheaf remains to be seen, but I recently dug out an even older set of notes. Two old spiral-bound half-sized notebooks… from the late 1970s and early 1980s! One contains thoughts and ideas, the other fragments of song lyrics.

I haven’t looked at this stuff in years. Going through it, I decided to record some of the more interesting in blog posts before I toss those notebooks.

Continue reading


Our Fertile Imagination

Humans have long had fertile imaginations. It isn’t just that we see patterns everywhere, but that we see them and make up stories about them. Whether it be the forest, the wind, or the stars, we have long read into the world around us a rich tapestry of our own imagination.

A thread that runs through it all is the agency we ascribe to the patterns. The gods control our fates, the spirits reward or punish us, the stars foretell our future. Even the remnant of tea leaves in the bottom of a cup gives us an important and relevant message.

But what happens when we don’t exercise our imagination?

Continue reading