Phoenix of Love

I’ve been thinking about what makes separate cultural groups unite into a nation.
It seems as though nations unify most often in response to some kind of assault from the outside: this is what happened with the United States, for example; and India. With these hostile outside pressures, it suddenly becomes more important to have a [...]

There’s an almost universal disregard for speed limits on American freeways. I was thinking about this recently while driving a thirty-mile commute to work. Every road seems to have a certain “natural” speed, and nearly everyone driving along that road gravitates towards that speed regardless of the speed limits that are posted. If a police [...]

“Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.”
— Gerard Manley Hopkins