Essays by Larry Barnett
When I was eight both of my grandfathers were sixty, which in 1956 actually was old. They were already stoop-shouldered and mostly liked to sit shirtless in lawn chairs in the hot sun for hours, smeared with sun tan oil. They wore suspenders and their pant-waists rose almost to their chests. Sometimes… Read the rest
One reason I sometimes feel dissatisfied with life is that my expectations are too high. In fact, this is the primary reason. I expect, for example, that candidates for President of the United States will have been taught good manners like politeness and not interrupting… Read the rest
Donald Trump recently justified his gutter-talk about women by calling it “locker-room” banter, and added that he’s heard much worse from Bill Clinton while playing golf. To his avid male supporters, Donnie’s potty-mouth probably sounds good; there are millions of men… Read the rest
For many people, there’s something about the present that’s just not good enough, the nagging feeling that what’s happening now needs to better, is in some way insufficient and unsatisfying. Out there, tomorrow, in the future, things will be better.
Even if we like our job, enjoy… Read the rest
Remind me, Dear One, to
Tell you the fable about the
Atom that hungered to be a
Molecule.
Most of us believe that what elevates a person in society is intelligence and talent, but this is not entirely true. Intelligence and talent are not insignificant; to the contrary, people with… Read the rest
There have always been competitive ones among us; from brute physical aggression to sophisticated strategic thinking, the ambitious make waves in the fabric of society. For much of human history, competition ended in death, and it ends in death sometimes even today. In… Read the rest
My father used to say “life can be good.” A cautious man, he was wise enough not to categorically state “life is good.” He knew, and the fact is, life can be difficult.
Life’s difficulties are both natural and unnatural. Our natural difficulties arise from natural causes;… Read the rest
I know it sounds like the name of some aggressive law firm, but Mean and Hurtful is the way we sometimes treat each other. Exposure to the news is most often how I witness Mean and Hurtful, but the other evening I unexpectedly found myself on the direct receiving end of such behavior.
I was on my way into a crowded… Read the rest
In the end, the skein of civilization turned out to be thinner and less substantial than most anyone had expected. Collapse of modern society took only a matter of weeks, not months. Once the electricity stopped the whole of industrial and mechanized society came crashing to a halt. Assumptions about… Read the rest
I recently read a Facebook post by a fellow who, just having had an RIFD chip implanted under his skin, described himself as “trans-human.” For those of you unaware exactly what an RIFD chip is, you’ll find one in the latest version of credit cards being issued by Banks. RIFD chips … Read the rest
How funny it is that everybody’s talking ’bout The Cloud! English lexicon has caught up with the reality of human consciousness: we have always had our heads in the clouds.
Human beings float in a boundless sky of mental and emotional ambiguity from which we extract concepts and string … Read the rest
While I was having lunch with “the guys” I began talking about “how we know what we know.” One friend interjected that what I was saying was “too abstract” to be of interest. This has happened to me before, and in such social situations switching topics … Read the rest
The rise of Donald Trump has many people shaking their heads in disbelief. How, they wonder, can a man who is so brutish and nasty rise to the Presidential candidacy of the Republican Party?
The form of this query betrays a fundamental error: Trump is not the cause of hatefulness, but a symptom of hatefulness… Read the rest
I get Donald Trump. I don’t like him, but I get him. I understand why he acts and sounds like a jerk; The Donald is annoyed.
Being annoyed places him the company of a lot of New Yorkers and former New Yorkers, like me. When you grow up in a city teeming with crowds, noise and stink it’s easy to feel… Read the rest
I’m old enough to have been right in the middle of the cultural, political and social turmoil of the nineteen sixties, and amidst the world’s current upheavals I sometimes feel as if history is repeating itself.
It’s not difficult to make comparisons about then and now; racial and… Read the rest
I think that if we are going to alter human genetics, we should get going on it right away and concentrate on giving human beings the gift of photosynthesis. As you most likely know, through photosynthesis plants feed themselves with sunlight.
Chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide and oxygen are the … Read the rest
Much is being made of current research indicating that the Glyphosate in Monsanto’s herbicide RoundUp is a likely carcinogen. A laboratory-made, liquid life-killing poison that turns dandelions to brown, withered husks in a day; that it probably causes cancer should surprise no one.
Weeds… Read the rest
For most of the past 5,000 years, the period of human history when monetary systems arose and spread across the globe, wealth has been measured by the accumulation of assets. Land, precious metal, slaves, tulip bulbs or any combinations thereof – all of which at one time or another have served … Read the rest
We live in complex, trying times. We know more about what’s happening in the world than any people who have ever lived before; much of it is disturbing, and about which we can often do little or mostly nothing.
Closer to home, the emotions being stirred up in this election year are alarming. Whatever… Read the rest
I love to read books; pencil in hand I underline points and passages that strike me as important, add margin notes, and often return to read significant portions over again. I do some reading online, but for me it’s no substitute for resting a book on my lap for hours.
I enjoy reading more than one … Read the rest