Very well, if I’m going to start inviting the world at large to visit this blog I guess I ought to say something about myself on it.
Not too much, because visitors who already know me already know me, and if anyone else wanders in I’m more interested in sharing with them my thoughts about other things, than in sharing info about myself.
So: I am 58 years old, a resident of the Boston area, an active member of the First Church in Boston (Unitarian Universalist), a Sanskritist and dabbler in dead languages generally, (living ones too but they have a habit of talking back,) with interests in world history, politics, religion and philosophy. I am very fond of classical music; also science fiction, which I have often toyed with the idea of trying to write.
Enough of this, OK?
Oh yes, the name. It’s a Greek word meaning “born elsewhere, alien,” and the Gnostics used it – e.g., in one of the Nag Hammadi texts – to express their idea that our essential self, the salvageable divine spark of being within us is fundamentally alien to the phenomenal world.
March 8, 2008 at 5:08 pm
October 22, 2011 at 9:17 pm
I have been following your blog and have been intrigued of the general outlook that you seem to hold. I was wondering if I might be able to ask you a few questions? They are not about anything in particular, yet I need a like-mind to converse with. Would you be so kind as to roll this over and let me know? If you have any questions you would ask of me first, please feel free. I do agree this is out of the blue and sporadic at best for me to be asking of you. So I understand in whole if you are to decline.
October 23, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Much as I enjoy sounding off by myself, dialogue is good too! By all means, ask what you like!
October 25, 2011 at 4:03 pm
I have a very poor opinion of society as it stands. I feel deluted by the foundation of conversations for the simple task of communicating. Without any thought being brought forth to the table by either party, the topics in which most delve are shallow and meaningless. I would ask if you had thoughts on how to better the general focus of the majority towards anything other than one another? I have tried to talk with peers on certain subjects and on all accounts they have steered the conversation back to: who said what or have you heard. I dislike T.V. and anything that has to do with it, so I find trying to talk to someone else hard to accomplish. Would you help me find an outlet other than studing alone or reading that might spark anothers interest in knowledge, even if on a general platform? Or even to find others who already have a thurst for it?
November 5, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I dearly hope that I did not scare you away at our opening conversation… I simply mean to converse.
November 5, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Not at all! Just too many commitments and too little time; nothing personal! I’ll try to get back to the blog more in the next week or two…