• Guest post: Who am I?

    https://charlessides.wordpress.com/2024/07/03/who-am-i/

  • The pursuit of happiness

    [At yesterday’s ILC meeting, we wound up with a somewhat open-ended drumming session centered on the question of happiness. I said, “Guys?” and got the following.] Happiness as in joy? Or Happiness as in “going with the flow”? They can be but aren’t necessarily the same. Tranquility is living in minimal friction with what seems…

  • Emotion and telepathy

    Wednesday January 23, 2019 Watching Peter Jackson’s 90-minute film “They Shall Not Grow Old,” comprising restored footage of British doughboys in World War I, I remembered an experience I had in 2001 or 2002. I was in London, walking near Trafalgar Square, trying to give David Poynter (experienced as a past life) a sense of…

  • Hemingway and the high cost of war

    July 8 is the anniversary of nearly-19-year-old Ernest Hemingway becoming one of the first Americans wounded in World War I. There are a few things that ought to be said about that, including some from the other side, from Hemingway himself. March 3, 2013 Have been re-reading Charles A. Fenton’s wonderful book, The Apprenticeship of…

  • Freedom and choices

    Friday July 12, 2024 10:10 a.m. All right, boys, I sense a conversation coming on. Maybe. What’s on your minds? Notice that you are now able at a deeper level to “do nothing” as you think of it. Potential projects are not in short supply. Most of your material is not in finished form. (We…

  • Organization and Scheduling

    Friday, July 19, 2024 7:30 a.m. I suppose it is time to get to work again. When the weather cools off even temporarily, the same conditions that may lead to breathing troubles often lead to a burst of productive activity. That’s how it feels this morning. So guys, a few tips would be appreciated We…

  • The real crisis of our time

    Just “coincidentally,” I came across this conversation from 18 years ago, and it seems worth sharing. Friday, February 17, 2006 It is 8 a.m., nearly, the start of a cloud-heavy morning. If you’re ready to answer [my brother] Paul’s question – what is the real challenge of our time, what is the equivalent of the…

  • Every day a gift

    Sunday July 21, 2024 8:35 a.m. Guys? A conversation. Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. It is a beautiful day. Why are you channeling Mr. Rogers? Why not? Did anyone ever hear him say it would be a beautiful day, “if only”? Every day is a gift, I know that now. My life would have…

  • Hemingway at 125. What if?

    In honor of Ernest Hemingway’s 125th birthday, this chapter from my novel Papa’s Trial. The idea is that Hemingway, finding himself in the afterlife, fully expects to be judged and condemned – so, that’s what he gets, up to a point. But while he is waiting for the jury to come in, he is enticed…

  • Guest post: thinking about dying

    Some honest and careful thinking from Charles Sides, as usual. This partly stemmed from a conversation we had yesterday.  We are so quick to leap to conclusions about whether a given thing is “good” or “bad.”  What if we settle for experiencing it as is, however it is? What if the question of whether it…