Essays by Larry Barnett
In contrast to most of human history, present day western culture does not like to think seriously about death. This is not to say we aren’t fascinated by it; the proliferation of films, books and television programs dealing with serial killers, zombies, and the apocalypse attest to that. The… Read the rest
The Pieces: Dirty cups, bowls, plates, platters, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons; an assortment of shapes of varying sizes that need to fill the rack space of the dishwasher. The Goal: Fit as many dirty dishes and utensils as possible in a fixed amount of space; the more you fit the more you win! It’s… Read the rest
Is the self physical or metaphysical? That is the question. The nature of self is hotly debated. Buddhist non-materialists consider the self to be a sustained hallucination, an opinion supported by some current-day neurologists who, despite all their attempts, cannot find a source of the self. Some… Read the rest
Think about how strange yet ordinary are space and time, here and now. Neither can be held, or for that matter seen or heard, and yet both play an undeniably important role in everyday existence. In order to experience and use them, we’ve created tangible substitutes for each.
In order to reckon with time… Read the rest
There are as many ways of dying as there are of living. Often, they are the same. My father Norman, for example, was an anxious man. He wanted to be in control always. We’d go out to eat dinner as a family and he’d make a scene about our table. “I don’t want to be so close to the kitchen,” he’d complain, or “This… Read the rest
Life’s diversity numbers in the many millions, and yet no two living things are exactly alike; all are heterogeneous. This is as true of oak trees and squirrels as it is of people, but the heterogeneous minds of people, particularly, generate many differing opinions. Among these opinions are those … Read the rest
The world is tumultuous by nature, a whirligig of happenings only a tiny portion of which any of us knows about, not including the bubbling froth of thoughts and feelings in individual hearts and minds.
With its endless storms and earthshaking, as if the vicissitudes of nature are not enough, add to it… Read the rest
It’s natural, even comforting, for us to weave a coherent linear narrative about ourselves, events, and histories that appear to explain how things happen from the perspective of cause and effect. The chronology of life feels real, that is to say, memory works by picking and choosing moments from our… Read the rest
The death of Alexei Navalny affected me deeply. To all appearances he was an energetic man of great resilience, having recovered from poisoning and subjected to harsh incarceration. Video of him on his last day of life shows him cheerful, smiling, and engaged; what was going on inside of him I can only… Read the rest
Call it a demiurge, cosmic force, or God; for hundreds of generations humankind has believed in a prime mover of the universe, a cosmic hand upon the wheel. The alternate idea, that the universe and life began accidentally or spontaneously without the intercession of a divine or supernatural force … Read the rest
I’ve been thinking about the French Revolution, how it led to the bloody Reign of Terror that killed tens of thousands and eventually to the tyranny of Napoleon. Some view such revolutions through the lens of class struggle: the inevitable revolt of an oppressed and beleaguered underclass against … Read the rest
Mother Nature came crying to me last night.
“I’ve had it,” she said,
her tears falling loudly on the skylight,
“I’m done.”
But the creeks, dear one, had heard it all before,
And just laughed.
Life as we know it is impossible without water. Water is both a catalytic agent and a medium, forming the colloid … Read the rest
Life on earth is very, very old, a couple of billion years, at least, and nearly all the creatures that have ever lived have disappeared. Were it not for photographs, we’d lack a visual record of our recent past, let alone that of our ancestors. As it is, excepting hundreds of years-old paintings, ancient… Read the rest
The mind/body split is quite a persistent delusion, even though the two are inseparably bound. In a supreme act of imagination, “I am self” decides that it is something apart, not only from the body but almost from the rest of the universe.
This tendency to place oneself “outside” of or apart from everything… Read the rest
Yes, it’s a Buddhist joke about how to order your hot dog on a bun, but deeper still, it’s a proclamation of unity on a fundamental level: that what feels broken is whole.
As individuals it’s very easy to feel as if we’re separated from each other, broken from the world, and the entire cosmos. Each living … Read the rest
“We see that in modern times many stones lack the virtues formerly attributed to them.”
– Petrus Garsias Episcopus, 1639
I was struck by the irony of learning that Representative Steve Scalise, a conservative Republican, is being treated for cancer with stem cells, a medical treatment derived… Read the rest
The recent court rulings in Colorado and Maine knocking Trump off the ballot for being an insurrectionist have been met with Republican crocodile tears about the erosion of democracy. “The voters should decide, not the courts,” they say. “It’s an unwarranted intrusion by the left aimed to punish the… Read the rest
At the subatomic, quantum level upon which all physical matter appears to be built is freedom, probabilistic indeterminacy that manifests to us as choice or even purposefulness. Although ultimately subject to the physical laws of the universe, only a fraction of which we fully understand, as far … Read the rest
I’m up at 3am. Can’t sleep. Again. My empty stomach gave me kick in the ribs, that apple I had for dinner having done its work and retired. A thick fog has settled over Sonoma like a wet blanket, dulling the noises of the night. Even the garbage trucks, roaring and whining like wounded animals, sound quieter… Read the rest
Does the universe self-organize into self-propagating systems? Are systems created by human beings self-propagating? The answers to these two questions might explain why things are as they are, and how they will continue to be.
First, let’s settle on some definitions, beginning with what a system… Read the rest