Tradition
Secular reflection
Reflection that does not appeal to a religious or philosophical authority. The pieces here were written for this collection and make no claim to be anything other than one way of putting a question.
7 passages
Passages
ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: rehearsing the futureWorry feels like preparation. That is the trick of it. Running the bad outcome again tonight will not make you readier for it than running it once did, and you have already run it…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: the account I am keepingThere is an account open in your name, and you are the only one making entries in it. That is the strange part. The person who wronged you has, in all likelihood, stopped thinking…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: The day starts the night beforeThe day starts when you lay your head down. Whatever you hand to the dark is what will be waiting in the morning, already dressed and standing by the bed. Most people spend the las…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: The weight you are carryingTiredness lies about its own cause. It presents as a failure of character — you are lazy, you are behind, you should be managing this — when the actual reading is much duller. You…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: What I cannot verifyThere is a particular loneliness in not knowing what you believe, and it is made worse by how confident everyone else sounds. The confident are not necessarily lying. Some of them…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: What is left of themGrief is not an emotion so much as a change of address. Everything is where it was, and the person is not, and the mismatch has to be worked through one object at a time — the mug,…ReflectionWritten for this collection
Reflection: what the pain is askingPain arrives with instructions attached, and most of them are wrong. It says: fix this now. It says: this will not end. It says: you should have seen it coming, and someone is to b…