civilization

We speak in circles

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We speak in circles to appear profound.
Our logic wobbles, yet we stand our ground.
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We color words in ideological hue.
Then swear the tint itself makes truth come through.
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We point at straw men, watch them burn with ease.
Declare our virtue on the social breeze.
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A sound bite dances, dressed in formal wear.
It struts through headlines, basking in hot air.
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What’s substance now, if phrased in clever jest?
The form is worshiped, meaning dispossessed.
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Ad hominem, our daily bread of spite.
A tasty feast where reason loses sight.
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We sculpt our arguments with plastic grace.
A smile can hide the cracks beneath the face.
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Emotion rules — the crowd will cheer or boo.
For truth is dull; they want a bolder view.
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We weaponize the clause, distort the clause.
Applause! Applause! We never mind the cause.
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Our graphs and charts perform a masquerade.
They bow to bias, empirically unfrayed.
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False syllogisms waltz across the floor.
They lead the blind to claim they see much more.
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We duel with data mined from murky swamps.
Each swamp, of course, is where belief still romps.
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Oh sophist, patron saint of every spin.
You teach us how to lose and call it win.
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We say “both sides” while hiding in the smoke.
The middle burns — the audience the joke.
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We love our tribal logos, neat and bright.
They glow so much we never see the night.
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And through it all, intent becomes disguise.
We sell mistruths, then buy our own supplies.
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But under rhetoric’s perfumed deceit,
There lies a hunger simple and discreet.
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To speak in clarity — to shape a thought.
Free from deceit, unbent, unsold, unbought.
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Let language serve to forge the lucid flame.
To name the world, not gild it with acclaim.
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For truth requires no costume, mask, or fight.
It stands in humble syllables of light.
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And should we seek to truly solve, not sway,
We’ll drop the tricks — and plainly say our say.

…

DCG

Screenshot

A solution revisited 

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The post “The solution of humanity” wrestles with the limits of human wisdom, the wounds of the past, and the failure of purely human projects to heal the soul, before finally resting in Christ as the only sufficient answer to our fractured condition. The poem below echoes that narrative arc: beginning with a wide search through world philosophies and faiths, then moving toward a distinctly Christian claim about grace, forgiveness, and the cross as the true quintessence of our humanity.


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I knelt before the sutras, drinking silence from their well. .
The Dhammapada whispered: “Guard your mind, it fashions heaven, it fashions hell.” .
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I traced the Tao in rivers, where the yielding waters wind. .
Lao Tzu sang of nameless Way, of empty bowls that feed the mind. .
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I bowed with old Confucius, where propriety patrols desire. .
He spoke of ordered families, of ritual that tempers fire. .
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I walked with dusty sadhus where the Ganges stains the feet. .
They murmured of samsara’s wheel, of breaking from repeat. .
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I sat with Zen companions, watching thoughts like passing rain. .
Koans cracked my logic’s shell, yet could not rinse my shame and pain. .
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These giants lit the mountains, each a lantern in the night. .
Still some cavern in my marrow shivered far from any light. .
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For every path said, “Discipline,” and every sage said, “Try.” .
Yet my will, a tired animal, only knew how to comply or to defy. .
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Reason built its scaffolds, stacked hypotheses like stone. .
But proof could not absolve me for the harm I’d done alone. .
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Some problems yield to data, to equations crisp and clean. .
But guilt is not a theorem, and grief is not a faulty gene. .
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I argued evolution with the fierce, design with trembling friends. .
Yet neither camp could teach my fractured heart how any story ends. .
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The quintessential question haunted every night I couldn’t sleep. .
Not “What is true in abstract?” but “Who can reach me when I’m deep?” .
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My childhood was a fracture, love withheld and love misused. .
A narcissistic mirror where my fledgling trust was bruised. .
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Neglect became my liturgy; I worshiped every fleeting nod. .
Attachment wired my nervous system tighter than a rod. .
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I sought in crowds a savior made of status, touch, and praise. .
But idols built of aching need devoured me in subtle ways. .
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I preached forgiveness to myself, a law I could not keep. .
“Let go, move on, be strong,” I said, then sobbed myself to sleep. .
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I tried to earn absolution, to deserve another start. .
But merit is a cruel god when you have a trembling heart. .
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Then the scandal of a cross cut straight across my schemes. .
Not as mythic consolation, but as judgment of my dreams. .
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A God who enters trauma, not to sanitize the scar. .
Who hangs between the guilty thieves and calls them from afar. .
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“Father, forgive,” was uttered where the nails made muscle tear. .
Not after we improved ourselves, but while we mocked Him there. .
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If there is any solution to this species, wild and torn. .
It will not rise from self-help shelves or from the newest creed reborn. .
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It comes as undeservedness, an offense to every pride. .
The Holy kneels in blood and dust and stands up on my side. .
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Grace is not a concept but a Person with a wound. .
The Logos wearing human skin, in borrowed grave entombed. .
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Resurrection is no metaphor for “try again once more.” .
It is the shattering of final loss, the opening of a door. .
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In Christ, the moral ledger is not erased by lie. .
It’s paid in full by One who chose to feel my failure die. .
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Buddha showed the craving flame, the Tao its gentle flow. .
Christ walked straight into my hatred and refused to let me go. .
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Confucius framed our duties, and the sages mapped the mind. .
But only pierced hands reached the child that history left behind. .
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The solution of humanity is not that we advance. .
It’s that the Author joins the story and is broken in our trance. .
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Forgiveness is not weakness, nor denial dressed as peace. .
It is cruciform surrender where the cycles slowly cease. .
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To love the unlovable is the line I cannot cross. .
Until I see myself there too, forgiven from that cross. .
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Then enemy and victim blur beneath that rugged sign. .
I stand as both, yet strangely held in mercy’s grand design. .
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The quintessential attribute our arguments misname. .
Is not our clever reason, but a Love that bears our blame. .
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So here I lay my systems down, my proof, my pride, my role. .
And rest in One solution: a wounded God who makes a whole. .

…

DCG

Portrait of the sophist 

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Reason wears a tie and polished shoes. .

It tap‑dances on a premise it did not choose. .

The speaker clears his throat and strokes his chin. .
He stacks three shaky “truths” and calls that a win. .

“All experts say” is how his sermon starts. .
By “experts” he just means his frightened parts. .

He cites a study no one’s ever read. .
Then crowns his timid hunch as ironclad instead. .

“If A, then B; if B, then surely C.” .
He hides the missing letters where you cannot see. .

He waves a chart like some enchanted wand. .
The numbers all are cherry‑picked and fond. .

He points at you and says your doubt is sin. .
The fallacy is holy when it helps him win. .

He builds a house of logic out of fear. .
Then rents it to the masses for a cheer. .

“Some wolves are bad, so all these dogs must bite.” .
The crowd nods hard; the rhyme makes wrong feel right. .

He juggles terms until they change their name. .
Then swears the rules of reason stayed the same. .

He calls you “fool” for asking what he means. .
Then hides behind big words and canned routines. .

When facts rebel, he shifts the guiding goal. .
The scoreboard moves to keep him in control. .

He quotes a sage he never really read. .
The meme becomes the scripture in his head. .

He paints his tribe as pure, the rest as flawed. .
Then claims this narrow circle speaks for God. .

He cries “Ad hominem!” when cornered tight. .
But smears your name at lunch and sleeps just right. .

Each claim is like a ladder made of smoke. .
He climbs it to the sky and calls it “woke.” .

The joke is that his audience is him. .
He argues with his mirror till it’s dim. .

Yet sometimes in the silence after spin. .
A tiny doubt taps lightly from within. .

He sees one crack along his perfect wall. .
And wonders if that “therefore” fooled him most of all. .

If reason’s just a mask his fear designed. .
What else could grow beneath a humbler mind? .

Perhaps the sharpest wisdom in this fight. .
Is laughing when our “logic” props our spite. .

For every false syllogism we defend. .
We push real understanding round the bend. .

So let the tidy arguments collapse. .
And feel the awkward truth between the gaps. .

Admit you do not know as much as claimed. .
And let that small confession stand unnamed. .

Then reason loses armor, keeps its heart. .
No longer just a trick to play the smart. .

We’ll still be wrong, but less in love with schemes. .
More free to trade our proofs for living dreams. .

If someone sells you certainty for free. .
Check twice which fragile story you agree to be. .

…

DCG

The individual skeptic

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

I was born an unfinished question in a house of ready‑made replies.
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They dressed me in their hand‑me‑down whys.
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The TV told me who to be before I knew my own first name.
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I memorized the script and called it “my” acclaim.
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Teachers drew straight lines where my thoughts tried to bend and roam.
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I learned to color in their boxes and called that “home.”
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The preacher thundered doctrines while my doubts sat shivering in the pew.
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I nodded like a bobblehead and called it “true.”
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Friends passed around opinions like a vape we all inhaled.
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We coughed out second‑hand convictions, then exhaled.
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My phone kept buzzing, “Here’s your tribe, just click agree.”
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It sold me mass‑produced rebellion labeled “me.”
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I wore my curated quirks like a neon crown of thorns.
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Still cried at night because I felt like one more clone in uniform.
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I posted “live your truth” with filters hiding half my face.
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Then wondered why my heart still felt out of place.
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Some days I preached free will while running on a leash of fear.
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I called it “God’s will” or “the algorithm,” both unclear.
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I mocked the sheep while checking where the loudest crowd would go.
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My “independent thinking” followed every trending flow.
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At last the joke grew loud enough to wake me from the dream.
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I saw ten different cages painted “self‑esteem.”
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I started asking who gets rich when I erase my doubt.
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And who gets nervous when I finally opt‑out.
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Individuality arrived not with a scream but with a sigh.
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A small, embarrassed “no” that would not die.
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It wasn’t fireworks, tattoos, or moving to a foreign shore.
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It was owning how my yes and no had bent before.
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I felt the panic: lose the tribe and you will surely disappear.
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Yet every honest word drew one real person near.
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I saw my parents’ frightened eyes inside the rules they taught.
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Their love and their indoctrinated fear were strangely wrought.
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I saw my faith was half alive, half armor wrapped in pain.
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I let a little silence fall between the prayers I’d chant by rote again.
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Now I walk this narrow hallway between “belong” and “be.”
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Some doors are locked by them, some quietly by me.
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The comedy is this: I stay a messy social creature to the bone.
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Yet every step toward being real leaves me less alone.
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I won’t be perfectly unique, some mythic island free of tide.
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Just one more haunted, laughing human who stopped completely running from inside.
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If there is any holy act in this bewildered, wired nation’s role.
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It’s signing your own name beneath the script—and then rewriting it in soul.

…

DCG

Specious habits of perception 

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When you speak your truth, I hear a different sky. .
Your words are rain, but my history makes them dry. .
You say it was a joke, I feel a hidden knife. .
Your laugh is light, my chest recalls another life. .
We stand in the same room, but wear a different past. .
My shadows move so slow, your joy runs bright and fast. .
You only see the surface, the shrug, the turning face. .
I’m drowning in an ocean you call a shallow place. .
I judge you as careless, you judge me as cold. .
We both are reading stories that were written old. .
My mind collects its proof, each glance a heavy stone. .
I build a quiet prison and then call it “home.” .
Your silence feels like anger, your distance seems like blame. .
But maybe you are frightened, and cannot voice your shame. .
I cling to my opinions like a shield of rust. .
They cut into my fingers while I name them “trust.” .
The mirror of illusion hangs inside my head. .
It shows me what I fear, not what you really said. .
Old injuries awaken when your eyebrows rise. .
I paste a former villain over your new eyes. .
These specious habits guide me, unseen but in control. .
They whisper, “You’re a victim,” and tighten round my soul. .
I notice how I flinch before you even move. .
I’m fighting ancient battles you never asked to prove. .
One day the strain is heavy, the argument repeats. .
We’re circling the same old wound on different streets. .
I feel the quiet cracking of the tale I wear. .
A softer voice inside me asks, “What if you’re not fair?” .
“What if your righteous anger is only half the frame? .
What if your sacred story is just one part of the game?” .
I pause before responding; the script begins to slow. .
A strange and aching honesty steps in and says, “Let go.” .
I tell you, “When you leave the room, I feel erased.” .
You answer, “When I stay too long, I feel displaced.” .
We stare at this new moment like a foreign shore. .
Two private worlds colliding through an open door. .
No one is the villain; the lens itself is flawed. .
We’ve worshiped our perceptions like a quiet god. .
You share the weight you carry, the shame you never named. .
I see how my suspicion kept your heart ashamed. .
We speak of early losses, of nights that shaped our sight. .
How hunger taught us both to fear another’s light. .
The room does not grow perfect; the pain does not dissolve. .
But now we stand together with a will to solve. .
We promise not to worship every thought we think. .
To question quick conclusions standing on the brink. .
To clean the dirty window where our fears have slept. .
To honor what we’ve lived, but not be wholly kept. .
In time, the habit changes, though slowly, line by line. .
Our eyes grow more transparent; your story touches mine. .
I learn that understanding is a costly fee. .
It asks my proud perception not to center me. .
So when I feel that tightening that says, “You’ve been betrayed.” .
I breathe, and ask more gently how this scene is made. .
I look for hidden sorrows behind the harsh display. .
I hold my judgments loosely, let some wash away. .
The specious habits weaken when we dare to see. .
That truth is rarely simple, and seldom just “for me.” .
In this, a quiet mercy rises, slow but real. .
We trade our shrinking armor for a wider field to feel. .
We will still make errors; the old ghosts sometimes call. .
But now we walk more open, less certain of our wall. .
And in that humble seeing, a truer life begins. .
Not free of all illusions, but free to loosen their thin skins. .

…

DCG

My soul compass 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Lost in the turning, I wander the haze.
The heart keeps seeking a brighter blaze.
The compass trembles, unsure where to steer.
The voice inside whispers, “You’re still near.”
Shadows of failure cling to the skin.
Yet dawn reminds me I’m born to begin.
Faith is fragile, a flicker in bone.
Still, grace leans close — I am not alone.
I walk through tempests with tethered eyes.
Truth unveils how the broken rise.
Love feels distant, its outline torn.
But scars are the proof of a soul reborn.
Attachment wavers, the self unsure.
Yet grace repairs what grief can’t cure.
The mind replays what the heart conceals.
But prayer unmasks what pain reveals.
I falter often, lost in despair.
Then Christ reminds me to cast my care.
The map I drew has burned away.
Still, light breaks through the ash and clay.
Each aching step rewrites my name.
The Lord restores the will to flame.
I gather lessons from every fall.
For bruises can be our greatest call.
Confusion whispers, “You’ve lost your place.”
Yet mercy meets me, face to face.
Bowlby spoke of longing’s chain.
God reshapes it through healed pain.
The insecure heart learns to trust.
When love is rooted beyond the dust.
The anxious soul yearns for hold and keep.
But heaven’s arms embrace so deep.
Each wound a teacher, each loss a friend.
They guide the soul toward its true end.
The chaos swirls, and yet I stand.
For faith was never a steady land.
It’s forged in fire, tested by cost.
Found in surrender, never lost.
The world instructs through loss and strain.
No tear is wasted, no effort vain.
Confusion yields what pride denies.
That wisdom blooms where the ego dies.
The compass spins, yet still aligns.
With truths the heart in silence finds.
We learn by falling, rise by grace.
Reborn, renewed, we find our place.
Every storm becomes a scroll to read.
A script of growth our hearts still need.
The path to light is rough and long.
But the weary soul grows strong through wrong.
So let the tempests bruise and bend.
For they are means, not the end.
In every loss, a sacred clue.
The world refines what is most true.
The compass turns — the heart obeys.
And faith becomes the soul’s new blaze.
We walk through shadow, anchored in day.
For God Himself lights up our way.

…

DCG

The ripple effect

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The Ripple Effect” argues that every small act, attitude, and decision sends out waves into other people’s lives and into society, shaping far more than we see on the surface. In simple terms, the post says that how you speak, how you love, and how you ignore or care for others all spread outward like ripples in a pond, eventually returning to you in the kind of world you end up living in. The heart of the message is moral and existential: you cannot control the whole ocean, but you are responsible for the ripples your own stone creates, and over time those ripples help build either a more compassionate world or a more wounded one.

The stone you throw is smaller than your hand. .
Yet circles run for miles beneath the skin. .
A whisper leaves your mouth like drifting sand. .
It builds a dune of shame or grace within. .
You think your anger dies when doors are slammed. .
But echoes bloom in children down the hall. .
A single careless phrase, “You’re weak, you’re damned.” .
Becomes the script a soul reads as it falls. .
The night you turned away from someone’s tears. .
Seemed trivial, a tired, forgetful hour. .
Yet loneliness grew thick across their years. .
And spread like ivy through their trust in power. .
The kindness you once offered half‑awake. .
A seat, a smile, a patient listening ear. .
Became the unseen bridge someone could take. .
To walk back from the ledge of secret fear. .
We live as if our moments stay in place. .
But time is water, nothing stays contained. .
Each choice dissolves, then gathers into space. .
As weather in another person’s brain. .
You scroll and judge, you mock behind a screen. .
The ripples cross a fragile, breaking heart. .
Or you send one true message, calm and clean. .
That says, “You still belong, you get a start.” .
A parent hides their grief behind a joke. .
The child learns early not to show their pain. .
The pattern travels outward, spoke by spoke. .
Till no one knows why love feels laced with shame. .
But also, when a wounded one forgives. .
The ancient tide of cruelty is shocked. .
A different kind of current starts to live. .
A door long rusted through is gently knocked. .
We are not gods who rule the storm and sea. .
We cannot mend the world with one grand act. .
But every quiet “yes” to empathy. .
Rewrites the terms of one inherited pact. .
The heart you soften softens someone else. .
They go back home and speak with gentler eyes. .
Their mercy grazes wounds you’ve never felt. .
And lifts a stranger’s head toward different skies. .
The pain you choose to finally feel and name. .
No longer leaks in ways you can’t control. .
You break the chain that always shifted blame. .
And send a cleaner river through your soul. .
So when you feel invisible and small. .
Remember how the circles leave the stone. .
Your life is not a closed and private wall. .
Your smallest love is shaping worlds unknown. .
Stand in the pond and own the waves you make. .
Let every breath be honest, fierce, and kind. .
For every tender risk you dare to take. .
Becomes the tide that heals the human mind. .

…

DCG

Life hack #4 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

To forgive is not for the “sole sake” of relieving another of their guilt, but rather for the “sake of the soul” that had been perpetrated upon!

DC Gunnersen

…

DCG

The quiet charity of loving

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The Quiet Charity of Loving”


I loved you as the dawn loves light,
Though darkness asked me to remain.
The sky was empty, but so bright,
It taught me joy can live with pain.
To give one’s heart and ask no prize,
Is worship whispered to the air.
For even when no answer flies,
The act itself becomes a prayer.
We love because to cease is death,
Our souls are orphaned when they hide.
Each longing shapes our mortal breath,
Each silence builds the place we bide.
You were the mirror I could hold,
Reflecting mercy into view.
My hands were empty, yet consoled,
For love became the work I do.
Not all who give must then be fed,
Some sow the wheat they’ll never taste.
But kindness lingers when it’s bled,
And sanctifies what time erased.
To want, yet will the other free,
To ache, yet hope their wings ascend—
That is the quiet mastery,
The art of one who loves as friend.
For hearts grow full when not confined,
When grace transcends the claim of name.
The truest lover is resigned
To bless the loss, not curse the flame.
Each wound refines what faith began,
Each tear instructs the heart to see.
We love not just for flesh or span,
But for who we may choose to be.
So if you never spoke my name,
Still, I am grateful for the sound.
For love unspent is not in vain,
It plants its heaven in the ground.
And from that soil, ghosts bloom wide—
Petals of patience, light, and care.
Unanswered hearts may yet abide
As proof that goodness lingers there.

RSP

…

DCG

Screenshot

Do you live on borrowed time? 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Do you live on borrowed time?

Do you let life just pass you by?

Do you live in an existential bewilderment?

You’re so choked up you  can’t even cry.

We see our lives pass

Never found your purpose?

Rich or poor you barely just get by

Don’t think about what is important

The only thing left to do is die

Right before our eyes

Did you take notice?

Or did you find yourself surprised?

Do we ask the right questions?

Do we empathize?

Do we follow nonsensical thoughts? 

Do we self hypnotize?

If you have oxytocin

But no purpose in your life to guide

You will go where the wind blows

Never knowing how to escape the imposing riptide

Kierkegaard

Netzche

Heidegger

Jasper‘s

Sattre

Camus

If “God is dead“ and “we are thrown into the world“

Then “life is absurd“ – and what can you do

Sometimes the more questions we ask, the more we find the more we don’t know

If we follow the paradigm of rational thought 

Nothing more than t our pride is shown

Borrowing breath we never own,
Measuring life by the hours that fly,
Building faith out of the unknown.

Haunted by clocks that do not sleep,


Our worth unmeasured by their rust,


Our promise deeper than what we keep.

If time is a loan, then let us spend,
Not hoard each hour in trembling fear,


But burn our truth until the end,


And hold the fleeting moment near.

For even gods once learned to die,


Their heavens cracked with mortal flame,


Yet mortals learn to testify
Through loss, through love, through sacred shame.

We live as thieves of passing breath,


Yet our crime is holy, bold, divine,


For in defying death with death,


We prove that life itself will shine.

So let the borrowed moments fade,


And leave their ache upon the bone,


For meaning isn’t found — it’s made,


Carved fierce from what was never known.

…

DCG

Prologue
This poem wrestles with a deep fear many of us share but rarely voice — the sense that life is temporary, and that time isn’t ours to keep. It asks: if everything we love is fleeting, what gives our lives meaning? It challenges the reader to rise up from despair and make something sacred out of the short time we’re given. In other words, it’s about finding purpose in the face of our mortality, not by denying our limits, but by defying them.