Welcome, May!

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The past few weeks have been stressful. Training new employees, dealing with difficult customers, not sleeping well, not exercising (I’ve gained 20 pounds in the last two years), getting through family drama (two life-threatening events in the same day, 2000 miles apart: my dad’s heart attack in NM and a 9 year grandchild starting the rest of his life with Type 1 Diabetes) . . .  My CrossFit lifestyle withered into oblivion when I lost my job at the University in 2020, as Covid got going. Deep depression brought me to a standstill as I took a few months to try to reset. Since then, my physical status has been on steady decline. Now my daily schedule looks something like this: Work 3-11 pm (on a good day), Go to bed at 4 am, get up between 10:30 am and noon, get booted up and go back to work. If I get one day off a week I’m fortunate. At least I don’t have to work all night for now. That was the worst.  So I haven’t had time or energy to do much, even read, much less write. And since my

A Few Collected Statements on Reading and The Rational Mind

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  • Some read just enough to keep themselves misinformed. (Amish proverb)
  • The man is sure to go wrong in his thinking whose aim is to get for himself. (possibly H.L. Mencken)
  • Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. (G.K. Chesterton)
  • There is no worse error than to seek intellectual remedy for moral grief. (Gaston Frommel)
  • Beat not out thy brains to fathom the un-revealed. (Harold Will)
  • It is not honking your horn that keeps you out of trouble as much as steering wisely. (Headline in the "Butter, Cheese & Egg Journal" July 12, 1922)
  • Knowledge is power under three conditions: if it is knowledge of things worth knowing; if it is known by a person worthy of using it; if it be used. (anon)
  • A brain is as strong as its weakest think. (Thomas Masson)
  • Hell hath no fury like a zealot trying to prove a theory. (anon)
  • True wisdom is seldom gained without suffering. (Sir Arthur Helps)

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