I spent a little bit of time looking at cabins for sale in the mountains this week. It's been months since I last did this, and I certainly wasn't looking with any particular seriousness this time around. But it's still entertaining to see what is available and imagining moving out to the middle of the woods. The past couple of weeks have been disappointing and frustrating for me, and the mountains have always brought me a sense of comfort and peace which I do not find elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to take a few days off and visit my place of retreat right now. So what is it about the mountains that I can't find elsewhere?
society
History Beyond Timelines of Discovery
For the past week and a half, I have been listening to a lecture course on the history surrounding the theory of evolution, and it has left me contemplating how ideas, particularly ways of understanding, spread and change with the amount of information we have. Today, the concept of natural selection acting to produce changes in species over the course of generations strikes most people as logical and obvious, but Darwin spent many years working out that very logic after his famous visit to the Galapagos Islands. We, of course, have knowledge of genetics which had not yet been discovered at that time although experiments on inheritance of various traits were being conducted during Darwin's lifetime.
Finding Your Own Philosophy
Regardless of what political views or moral codes you subscribe to, most people hold an idealized concept of how they think the world would work if everyone held the same beliefs and lived by the same rules. Some people strive to make those ideals a reality. They engage in protests. They participate in letter-writing campaigns. They attempt to teach as many people as they can about their philosophies. These can be good things that bring about positive changes in our world, and yet we often see in the media how these actions polarize people into "us v them."
Choices in Parenting
Last week I came across a video on Facebook of a father punishing his ten-year-old son by making him run to school. His child had been kicked off the bus for three days for bullying. There were a great number of comments on the video, some praising the father for posting the video as an example to other parents, while others criticized the father for bullying and humiliating his son by posting the video... Please click to read more...
Rebooting This Blog
I had originally wanted to reboot this blog last October/November (2017), but just as I was finding time to devote to it, the Las Vegas shooting occurred. I didn't want to start uploading posts during such a time of political and social chaos. Now when I've found time once again, we've had the Florida school shooting... Please, click to read more.
HLHumbert 