R.H. blog

All together and laughing, the family Fills the long, low house on the farm; They gather naturally to drink coffee, To rein in the years and make them stand still. In his armchair, an old man smiles And shakes his white head at the children.   Squirming with impatience, the children Play on the floor while the family Stands with hands in pockets and smiles And discusses a new tractor for the farm, While someone asks if the old one works still And someone starts a fresh pot of coffee.   The sound of beans grinding and the coffee Dripping, drowns the sound of the children Who must take loud games outside, or be still. One sister starts dinner for the family and listens to the talk of the farm. They ask how school’s going and she smiles.   Mom watches from a corner and smiles; She laughs at the jokes and makes more coffee And watches the sun set over the farm, Her kind eyes falling on the playing children. Dad kisses her chee...

I will be selling and signing copies of my book,  Sketches of a Small Life , at the summer market in Chowchilla, California, on Friday evenings, 6-8:30pm, June 16, 23, and 30. Stick around for Music in the Park (starting at 8pm)! All events are free and open to the public. Location: Veteran's Memorial Park, 600 W. Robertson Boulevard, Chowchilla, CA 93610 Link to City of Chowchilla event page:  https://www.cityofchowchilla.org/339/Summer-Event-Series    

  The age of AI is the inevitable next stage in the evolution of civilization. We must not forget that civilization is, and has always been, one vast machine, in which every wheel and cog is a discipline designed to address a human need. Civilization is concerned with addressing human needs en masse , in distributing to individuals whatever is needed for a comfortable existence. Thus, it lays out a vast network of disciplines to optimize the production and distribution of everything a human could need, and it produces structures and systems to cultivate the collective good. Thus, we arrive at the education system, the healthcare system, the justice system, the political system, and everything that, through organized effort, is designed to produce a desirable effect. Civilization, like any machine, takes natural forces and organizes them to achieve a certain goal. An individual outside of civilization will do the same thing: make use of its surroundings to survive and refine the tec...

 By Timothy Verrinder To understand the complex world around us, it is helpful to simply imagine everyone as children. Somehow, the thought of a boardroom of children in suits and dress skirts with pen, paper, phones and coffee cups makes the content of any business meeting seem more accessible. The courtroom with a seven-year-old on trial before a pudgy, bespectacled and robed judge and a jury of his “peers” might be another example. Even in politics, where it’s not so much a stretch of one’s imagination to view everyone as children, it is a helpful exercise not just in reducing the complexity of things, but also the intimidation factor which accompanies complexity. Little Mr. Stevens standing on a stool to write on the whiteboard doesn’t quite evoke the intrigue and competition associated with corporate life. The lawyer’s powers of persuasion and legal acumen are rendered laughable as soon as little Ms. Sanchez says “ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” As for politics, well, much ...

Although the commercial focus is on romantic love, Valentine’s Day is a good time to think about love in general, as a force and as a philosophy of life. People describe love in a million ways and tack on countless definitions to it that vary infinitely, and yet love remains the same and is understood in the same way by all, because love eludes the intellect and impresses itself instead into the heart and soul. All of the most fundamental things do so, because the intellect is the least fundamental form of existence. The intellect deals with existence after it has taken a physical form, when it has reached its most tangible state. The intellect deals with existence at its surface, and analyzes the ripples in the water rather than the original disturbance. Nothing that deals with the form of existence rather than the spirit can truly comprehend love. But, like anything, love takes a form, and that is precisely where the confusion arises. Love makes ripples in the water, but the ripple...

When it comes to pop culture trends, I consider myself a cautious follower. I like to wait a little to see if a trend will last long enough to be worth my time, but I eventually hop on the bandwagon, which makes me an objectively uncool person: not cool enough to be a trendsetter and not cool enough to ignore trends altogether. But when it comes to film, I’m especially lazy. By the time I got around to Stranger Things , almost everyone I knew had already seen it. I watched Game of Thrones long after the final season was released and then only through a heavily censored, abbreviated series of YouTube videos. And by the time I watched Squid Game I already knew half the plot from the memes alone. (Incidentally, memes are my primary motivation for watching most shows.) Regarding James Cameron’s Avatar , my laziness is a little more understandable since I was eight years old when it was released and I still hadn’t recovered from the shark scene in Finding Nemo. As I got older, I felt ...