I woke up on December 11, 2019 and I wasn’t dead. When staying alive is your goal, you might do a few things to prevent your death. Or maybe not. When I was a little kid, I had a seizure and was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy.  I was not allowed to climb trees, play […]

Once on a Bus Life happens all around us … every single day. Most days, we don’t even see it. Occasionally we do. On rare days, we are it. Fully alive, thoroughly soaking up the sun, lever wide open. My childhood school days started and ended with a 40-minute ride on a boxy, hardseated, bumpy […]

You step off the bus, some two hours from Palermo. You finger the return schedule in your pocket. Lercara Fridi has no welcome center. Your feet follow your eyes to a florist who features local ceramics. The owner greets you in the language you practiced for months but can only scrape basic meanings. Like listening […]

Transcript of YouTube speech by Carol Williams Max Planck, quantum theorist and Nobel prize winner said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Max wasn’t an ad man, he was observing and theorizing about the fundamental nature of the universe. He saw that the very act of […]

Mall Walking 101      Confession: I am a mall walker.      Why do I feel the need to fess up?      I’m…not…sure.      However, when someone asks about my exercise routine, I tell them that I lift a few weights and take a walk every morning. When it’s a nice day I take a stroll near home and, when […]

English River sounds more romantic than Ignace. Especially Upsala. Being halfway between where you were and where you are going happens all the time, figuratively. The opportunity to pinpoint this middle ground physically, during a giant lifestyle change is not so easy to jab with a pin. When you can zero in on one location, […]

The Tontine The clock of life is wound but once,And no man has the powerTo tell just when the hands will stopAt late or early hour.To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed,To lose one’s health is more,To lose one’s soul is such a lossThat no man can restore.The present only is our own,So live, love, […]

Peddler George When my brothers and I caught sight of the horse and buggy coming down the road, we raced to meet it.  Our excitement increased as the old man pulled into our driveway.  The whole family gathered around to greet Peddler George and his buggy full of wares. Sometimes George took the harness off his old […]

Behind the Scenes in Heaven Standard Operating Procedure says, “once it’s created, throw away the mold.” So, God must have been pretty pleased with Himself as He tucked this blueprint into a hidey-hole for safe keeping. March 29, 1958, God gleefully fetched the blueprint and handed it off to the Guardian Angel of Roy H. […]

A Close Call  It’s never a good idea to leave an eight year old unsupervised for very long. July, the sun was up early and so was I not wanting to waste a minute of my school holidays. After saying goodbye through the car window and my parents driving  away my mind quickly dismissed the […]

The Embarrassing Honeymoon Jock-itch Story And Why it Taught Me the Single Most Important Lesson of My Copywriting Career I don’t want my wife to murder me in my sleep, so let me be clear. My wife did NOT give me jock-itch on our honeymoon. No. I’d gotten altitude sickness a few days early. The […]

Lottery June 8th. That’s my birthday. We Gemini’s are known to party. And party is what I’m gonna do tonight. Know why? Because even though it’s not my birthday, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Halloween, or St. Paddy’s Day, today is bigger than all of them put together. Yep, today, December 1, 1969, was the draft […]

Logical wisdom among counselors is, “Do what you love. Follow your passion.” But America’s prisons are full of people who did exactly that. People who say “Follow your passion” assume that passion is the bridge to commitment, success, and happiness. But experience teaches us precisely the opposite; passion does not lead to commitment. Commitment leads to passion. […]

“In logic, an argument can be invalid even if its conclusion is true, and an argument can be valid even if its conclusion is false. It’s a confusing concept, and people are easily fooled when an argument’s validity and believability don’t match up, especially in the case of invalid arguments with conclusions that are believable. […]

I’m often credited for being a great father.  If that’s true, it’s not because I’m a great example what to do, but more of an example of what not to do. I have never taken an illegal drug and I was 21, working in a nightclub as a barback when I took my first sip […]

I envy those that swim the deep water. I blame my brother.  I mean there’s got to be someone to blame, right?  But he really should have known better.  God he was a cocky one.  He must have been about thirteen, which would put me somewhere near six-years old.  He swore he could get me to the island.  Who was I […]

“Who buys a used safe?” Calhoun Gildihorn was sure of that one, even if he wasn’t sure of much as he circled to park. Today was Full Album Friday on his favorite station. “Yellow Submarine” was on, adding irony to his drive. That he also knew, plus he knew he was full. His stomach tidal […]

It was a beautiful day, azure sky punctuated with cotton ball clouds and a sun so bright you needed to shield your eyes as if someone was arc-welding. My first thought was to grab a cup of coffee, a good book and go out on the screened-in porch and curl up in a big chair. […]

I look around and see my men, nervously puffing cigarettes faster than they can buy them. Fear and reluctant excitement thicken the air. We’ve logged hundreds of hours in this steel tube and flown clear across the ocean, but never into enemy territory.  The stories from returning crews are either heroic or tragic. There is […]

Here We Go Again: VL2020 Wouldn’t it be lovely to reset yourself, to gain absolute control of your future? Now you can—trust me. Why bother, you say, since the body replaces its cells every 7-10 years? True, however, brain cells keep multiplying and need pruning and reconfiguring. That’s why my new app This is Your […]

Three Ideas that Explain Who You Are 1: You are the product of your genetic code, hardwired to behave in certain ways. 2: You are the product of your environment, the sum total of your influences. 3: You are the product of your choices. It is your preferences, not your surroundings, that define you. I believe […]

I want to come to the Wizard Academy and marinate in the secret sauce you’ve concocted, the stuff that creates such tasty storytellers. I want to write good, thought-provoking posts that will engage readers  and I think you could really help sharpen my pencil.  Here’s a story about a gift that took 50 years to […]

Opening Chapter of The Temple (an allegory of the Fall of Adam) The Hydrox breathed darkfire that sucked the light out of the cave. Adam’s diamond sword Gleamer refused to be sucked into the darkfire breath. Adam swung the sword and the light within the sword extended beyond its size and reached to the Hydrox, forcing a […]

Modern Love I´d rather get a toothache than perspective 2017 was the year I went around wishing I would die. My eleven year marriage to the man I had loved since I was 18 had fallen apart, and I did not have horses or men to put it back together again. What remained after the […]

Pink Skies at Night It was probably illegal, yet still I clambered out into an opening of Chapel Rock along the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior and wedged myself into position of mediation. Then again, it was after Labor Day and the trolls had returned below the bridge. I had the bay all to myself. […]

 Tandem  Miguel’s arms were short. Too short. He was always rolling up his cuffs, and he was never picked for basketball. Why couldn’t he have arms like Jack? Instead he had inherited his mother’s short stature and his grandfather’s thick eyebrows. Jack, on the other hand, had gotten the best of everything. Long legs, long […]

We are going to print one copy of this commemorative book for each guest at our May 2nd event. It will be full-color throughout and a fat 8 x 8 inches with 132 pages including a detailed explanation of all the symbols hidden throughout the campus. And there are LOTS of them. (The 52 full-page […]

Materials for the 6 cabins will be $30,000 each. Each of the builders of these 6 cabins will each receive:  A 2-day private Academy class of your choosing for up to 24 people, including use of the entire Wizard Academy campus for 2 days and 3 nights. (A $30,000 value) Your private Academy event will […]

Hollister, the oldest of the grandkids, is handing out gifts on Christmas Eve. These 3 photos comprise Grandkids Corner in the rabbit hole of Indy Beagle for 2019. Happy New Year, all! – Indy

FOREWORD:   WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE TEACH 1. A LANGUAGE OF ARCHITECTURE 2. GO UP FOR CELEBRATION. GO DOWN TO FIND DEPTH OF MEANING. 3. THE TOWER (STUDENTS ONLY INSIDE) 4. WALKING TO CHAPEL DULCINEA 5. CHAPEL DULCINEA 6. EXPLANATION POINT, AND MY HEART IS IN YOUR HANDS  7. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE […]

Will it be obvious when robots have free will? I think the first evidence will be if robots start communicating with each other counterfactually, like “You should have done better.” If a team of robots playing soccer starts to communicate in this language, then we’ll know that they have a sensation of free will. “You […]