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Stanley Tumblers & the Mystery of the Feminine

How could a functional item, namely a drinking tumbler, cup, or mug, transform not simply into a woman’s fashion item, but into a fad? And so much so that many women have camped out at Target and other stores where the tumblers are sold, waiting for the store to open,...

Toilet Paper Hoarding: It’s Deeper Meaning During the Corona Virus

The Corona Virus is a respiratory malady. The danger is that it could lead to pneumonia. Corona does not attack the digestive system, and so doesn’t cause diarrhea. There isn’t, therefore, any practical reason to hoard toilet paper. And yet, the shelves of most stores...

The Beach Boys Enter the DepthsNew

After singing “Sloop John B for over fifty years, Brian Wilson, the founder of “The Beach Boys,” added some new lyrics that change the entire tenor and meaning of the song. This shift in perspective is no small matter. It offers us a clue to the

A Mysterious Autumnal HaikuNew

“This path no one walks along, evening of autumnal day.” — Basho A path that no one walks along, on an autumn evening — what sense can we make of Basho’s mysterious image? It conveys a certain metaphysical pathos, one redolent with melancholy

The Mystery of VapingNew

Have you ever seen someone deliver a burst of nicotine-laden vapor into his lungs via a handheld electronic device? And have you then seen him — about 90% of the time it’s a male — then expel what is now a billowy white cloud of vapor from his mouth? Well, that

The Mystery of a French Horn, in a Beatles’ SongNew

I was sitting in a coffee house, the other day, listening to the radio playing, “For No One,” from the Beatles’ 1966 album “Revolver.” Paul McCartney had composed one of the saddest of songs, about unrequited love.

The Lost Secret of Career Success

When it comes to career success, the best advice is offered by Socrates, “Know thyself!” There’s a popular beer commercial, where the most interesting man says, “The secret to success consists in finding out what you’re bad at, and not doing it.” Ah, if only

The Mystery of Cigarette Smoking

Out of the millions of people who smoke cigarettes probably not a single one of them knows why. Nor do the great majority of psychologists and psychiatrists understand why people smoke. Nor do the well-meaning folks at major health organizations,..

The Mystery of Anxiety

What is anxiety? It’s not synonymous with stress! Rather, stress is merely the physical dimension of anxiety. In other words, stress is how anxiety registers in your body. In your shoulders, your head, in your arms. But anxiety is not just physiological. On the

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But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who

loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?