Tag Archives: stillness

Alone with Our Thoughts

In what now seems the distant past — the late 1990s or early 2000s — as I walked to my car after work each evening, I noticed a common behavior in others also walking to their cars. A lot of them were talking on their cellphones.

This was before smartphones became a thing and long before apps on phones. To the extent there was texting, one had to laboriously use the dialing keypad. Those devices were just cellphones.

Watching so many walk-and-chat struck me as odd — I valued the quiet moments of transition from work to personal life.

Continue reading


Friday Notes (Oct 24, 2025)

Fall — my favorite season ‘cept for the fading of the light — has fallen here in Minnesota, and our thoughts are turning towards the question of what kind of winter it will be: easy or miserable.

My winter is coming triple mile markers loom, the first dead ahead: Will it snow by Halloween? Will it snow by Thanksgiving? Will it snow by Christmas? Answers to all three vary depending on the whims of Mother Nature and her unexpected offspring, Climate Change.

In the meantime, here we are again for another edition of Friday Notes.

Continue reading


Stillness and Solitude

In the Science Notes post published last Friday, I didn’t have room for the last article that caught my eye in recent issues of New Scientist. This article was, I thought, a bit different from the others and seemed to require its own post.

Firstly, it has a meaty heft and ties in with an old post of mine as well as some notes I have for a post I thought to call Stillness Redux (in reference back to that old post).

What’s ironic to me is how what the article offers as possible anodyne for modern life is very much the life I’ve lived since I began navigating my own course across life’s seas.

Continue reading


Still of the Heart

I usually lean towards descriptive writing more than prescriptive writing. I feel more comfortable describing my views and experiences than I do trying to prescribe a path for others.

But some blog articles I’ve read in the last months have made me wonder if I should try a prescriptive approach. This is something new for me, and I already sense a challenging path. How likely is it that someone who would benefit will read such a post, and how likely is it they would follow any prescription I might offer? And of course, what makes me think I can offer any prescription for another person’s life?

In any event, for whatever it’s worth, this prescription is labeled for those who feel dissatisfied with life, who feel a gap between what is and what they feel ought to be.

Continue reading