by David on August 30, 2010
The first few times I heard about God, I was already suspicious. My earliest clear memory of it was when I was five, leaning against the screen door of our small town home with my older sister, watching a midsummer thunderstorm unfold. We were in awe, like I have been at every thunderstorm since. I [...]
by David on August 26, 2010
Well it turns out there’s been much more interest in Douglas Harding’s Headless Way than I initially thought. I’ve had quite a few lengthy comments and a lot more emails than normal. Evidently Headlessness has struck a chord with a lot of you, and people have a lot of questions. I can’t explain everything about [...]
by David on August 23, 2010
This is the fourth article in a series about Douglas Harding’s method of self-inquiry, called headlessness. The others are here: [Post one] [Post two] [Post three] In the previous article, I described Harding’s discovery that he, in his first-person, singular, present-tense experience, did not have a head. He insists that anyone who gives it an [...]
by David on August 16, 2010
Over the next few posts, I’m taking you down the rabbit hole as far as you’re willing to go. Before we go on, though, it’s time to tackle a topic that is essential to understanding humanity and ourselves. I refer to the ego frequently here on Raptitude, and that’s because it has an immense role [...]
Happiness is slippery. It doesn’t like to stick around. We know we’ve had it before, but it’s gone away, and we know there are certain things we have to do to find it again. Certain ducks have to be in a row. After all, if you didn’t have to do anything to be happy, you [...]
by David on June 28, 2010
As I was sprinting through the cavernous Hong Kong airport toward my gate Sunday afternoon, a deodorant roll-on in my bag cracked and leaked all over my laptop. The laptop is replaceable, but its contents are not. There may be a way to recover my files, but for the moment it looks like I have [...]
by David on June 24, 2010
It’s time to go. By the time you read this I will be flying from Brisbane back to Auckland, where I’ll tie up some loose ends and have one last ice cream cone. Then I go home. It’s been eight and a half months since I exchanged final goodbyes with my family at Winnipeg International. [...]
by David on June 17, 2010
Few books have been recommended to me so frequently and gushingly as Dubner and Levitt’s Freakonomics. After tracking down a used copy in a musty Brisbane book exchange, I devoured it before lunch the next day. It really is a compelling book. Its premise is that conventional wisdom is often wrong, because society’s experts use [...]
Guest posts are rare on Raptitude, but today my friend and fellow writer Lisis Blackston has come out of retirement to share some of her wisdom with us. Enjoy. Sometimes it seems like everything we say on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or even in conversations is either “preaching to the choir,” or “falling on deaf ears.” Readers and [...]
You have the right to remain silent. You may give up that right, and anything you say can be used against you. If you choose to waive your right to remain silent, you are solely responsible for the consequences, be they burdens or benefits. The right to remain silent is also the right to not [...]