The City Mouse in the Country

       I am, first and foremost, a hedonist.  That just means that I want to do what brings me the most pleasure - both physically and mentally - without causing myself pain.  Hedonism gets a bad rap in the modern world because most people think it's all about bodily pleasures without regard to someone's else's feelings.        The truth is that Hedonism is all about moderation.  You can enjoy the "chocolate icing", like Hedonism Bot does, a few times but after awhile it no longer has the same effect.        The ancient Greek thinker Epicurus gave rise to the Hedonism that I follow.  He believed, to quote the Wikipedia entry about him,.that: " For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to help people attain a happy, tranquil life characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a s...

A few days ago, Autumn struck Western Pennsylvania.  The red maples exploded into the blazes of color that they are known for, other trees started to slowly change and the first leaves started to fall. A few days ago, the woods were alive with the sounds of migrating birds, and I wish I had taken out my phone to record the sounds, I found myself thinking of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds.   Although I never had that sense of foreboding or dread, I just wished that I could have seen them and recorded the moment. It was also a morning where I awoke to fog and the sound of small arms fire, which to be completely honest, I mistook as fireworks.  I'm not sure if they were hunting squirrel, which is in season now, or just shooting to practice, but it was a little odd for me.   Susan just chuckled and told me to wait for deer season in November. I am enjoying some parts of country life, other parts...not so much.  Yesterday morning Susan told me that I didn't seem ...

      Years ago I remember reading that Title line from a poem.  I've long forgotten the poem, the poets name and even the book I read it in.        However that first line has always stuck with me.        It is quiet here in Western Pennsylvania, I can hear the two dozen or so different species of birds sing in the trees that surround my home.  They swoop in sometimes, chickadee's and mourning doves, to eat at my feeders.     I've not seen a robin yet, and I do miss the family of Cardinals that used to come home every year and build a nest not far from my home in Tampa.   The young ones first flight was often to our feeder, where they would feast on black oily sunflower seeds and knock the little grains to the grass below.  Where rabbits and squirrels would gather to feast.       Here a lone chipmunk bides his time and avoids the feral cats that would ...

            When I attended Slippery Rock University, which as luck would have it is south of where I currently live, I had a professor who taught Philosophy named Robert A. Macoskey.   He influenced me in a lot of ways; not the least of which was giving me a lifelong love of Philosophy, which I often credit as allowing me to succeed in nearly everything I’ve done in my life; because once you learn to think clearly and logically, you can do anything.                He was very interested in Sustainable Architecture and permaculture, or “ Perma nent Agriculture” which would influence me even today although not in the ways I expected.     Perma cutlture defined is “The development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self sufficient.”    Or to put it another way, “live with nature” or “sustainability.”        ...

     It's mid September and already you can feel winter in the air, it lurks like a proverbial horror movie villain just outside the windows.  It's presence is felt in the dropping temperatures and the winds that blow across my neighbors open fields.       I had escaped it's grip twice before in my life, moving to North Carolina when I was a younger man fresh from college, and when I moved to Florida shortly after the 2008 housing crash because I could not get arrested in the Pittsburgh job market.     Now I had returned, perhaps for the last time due to aging family and the wishes of my long time girlfriend I easily called "wife."  The first winter would be hard on me I knew.  I loved the warmth, the sun, the longer days of spring and summer.  I was not someone that enjoyed the concepts of being cooped up for three months hunkered down and waiting for the golden rays to return.     However I could...