Ethereal Insights

Monju Crossing the Sea ( 絹本著色文殊渡海図 ) Gravitas | Friday – May 15, 2026 G ravitas is one of those things that require time and proper development, a little bit like fine wine and really if forced it almost never works. Yes, it could be that on occasion an actor, maybe two actors, are able to pull of the role of being the man with gravitas but this is a rather hard act and for the most part I would expect those actors to have a lot of gravitas on their own, read " Directing Films ". Truly, anything that has grown into its domain, anything of quality that is, has a kind of gravitas to it or about its presence, read " Traditional Forms ", such as a Divan in the right context. But gravitas is perhaps something that people mostly associate with humanity and in particular men; this is why I believe that it is helpful to distinguish between the concept of traditional forms and gravitas, not that such a distinction is strictly required in my view. Of course, since gravitas ,...

Photograph of the Atlas globe Mass Surveillance | Thursday – May 14, 2026 I n our days m ass surveillance is becoming more and more common ; to the point where it is almost something quite acceptable and even expected . The idea of privacy and integrity while closely associated with individualism is now being hollowed out, and it is being hollowed out primarily because of stupid and lazy people : most people are simply too lazy to notice these changes, read " The End of History " and " Democracy ", and besides the argument that most people keeps returning to is always the same: as long as you do not break the law , whatever that means, you have nothing to worry about. Is this the relationship most people want to have with the state ? Of course it is; most people have replaced God  with something else, in most cases some kind of temporal power , and again this has gone so far that most people indeed have no problem with this; the fact that the government is spying on...

Hindu ( ॐ ) depiction of Ganesha ( गणेश ) on his Vahana Mūṣaka ( वाहन ) Happiness? Wednesday – May 13, 2026 H appiness, is it even important? You see, there has been plenty of talk about happiness or the need to always be happy, as if a person that is not "happy", per se , is somehow defective. But is it really the case that human beings should go on and be happy all the time? What is the point in being continually happy? Of course not, and the whole point of being happy would just become defeated if humans experienced nothing but constant happiness, and indeed many people who are "happy", or perhaps more so seemingly happy, properly belong to that, somewhat problematic category , of the insane , read more about that here . Indeed, a person that is continually happy is usually labeled a "maniac", for maniacs tend to display this kind of overly happy and overly optimistic, and perhaps above all a kind of motivation that is too strong for any kind of good, a...