Author Archives: Greg Swann

Christmas in Las Vegas with Kim Jong-un.

“You adorn your body with comical uniforms and undeserved medals, and you plaster your name with ridiculous titles, all to make up for your fundamental emptiness. You live your life as the empty puppet of an empty doctrine, and everyone … Continue reading

Posted in Christmas brutality, Poetry and fiction, This is Vegas, Willie stories | 3 Comments

The Visibility Game: DISC (my way) and the game theory of everything.

Q: What can you tell about a person by the way he walks in a crowd?A: Everything else.Photo by: Aaron Tait Taking the time to really see the people around you will help you navigate your values – and theirs. … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

A canticle for Kathleen Sullivan.

From the Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie Christmas story collection, available at Amazon.comA Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story December 23, 2002 I got to the hospital after visiting hours, but the nurse led me to the room anyway. “There hasn’t been anyone,” she … Continue reading

Posted in Christmas brutality, Poetry and fiction, Willie stories | 4 Comments

Graduated Sociopathy: Why there are no villains.

We give a little to get a lot.Photo by: Barry DavisI can show you where all monstrous behavior comes from – starting with your own. That would be church, Lurch. More on the non-existence of villains here. Much more from … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

What’s the egoist, atheist, anarchist take on abortion? Don’t fight it. Breed – and creed – it away.

Facts are facts. You cannot possibly havethe “freedom” to cancel the past.Photo by: ⅯeaganI’ve been bitching about abortion for 16 months now, and no one is more amazed by that fact that I am. It’s always been a deal for … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

So long, Leonard Cohen: An elegy from The Tower of Song.

“I’ll be singing to you sweetly from my window in the Tower of Song.”Photo by: marc cornelisJust in time to spotlight Bob Dylan’s disgrace, Leonard Cohen sings sweetly from beyond the grave: Art is an emergent phenomenon. It happens only … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

DISC is a universal shaling for the universe each one of us will perfect.

What am I running from? Every race I didn’t win.Photo by: Tsutomu TakasuNow that’s an opaque headline. I’m pretty sure the only person on earth who pays close attention to the things I say is me. That might be a … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

Vote today for the one person who can deliver real change in your life: You.

There is someone who always cares if you live or die. Cultivate that person’s mind.Bad news: No matter who wins today’s presidential election, everybody loses. Here’s how you can choose to win instead: Stop looking for the other guy to … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

Zero tolerance punished by extermination is the natural order for every Cautious tyranny.

Backseat drivers are not a problem – until they seize the steering wheel. But once they do, the loop amplification of persistent, failed compliance displays will induce the Cautious tyrant to fix people in the only way they can be … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | 1 Comment

Yearning, working and winning: How to look out for your own.

Today Chopsticks, tomorrow Heart and Soul.Photo by: Camera Eye PhotographyChurch this week: The world may be going to hell in a hand-cart, but you don’t have to go there with it. There could not possibly be a more propitious time … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

Traindancing: The mission statement.

‘Dinnertime?’Photo by: University of Liverpool Faculty of Health & Life SciencesI mentioned my new verb, shaling, a week or two ago in Church. I’m writing a novel called Traindancing, which will document a lovely and inspiring kind of shaling. The … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

Dylan does nothing – and everything is undone.

“I hate you! I hate you! Daddy, I hate you! So bad!”Illustration by: the euskadi 11I admire Bob Dylan’s inaction over his Nobel Prize, even as I recognize that it may be less a principled stand than it is typically-sphinxlike … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

Lies all the way down: Why you MUST keep your own counsel.

Bullshit all the way down.Photo by: Luis PenadosChurch this week: As the Wikileaks leaks make ever more obvious, we are living in a world of unconstrained deception. Now more than ever, you must think for yourself. I speak in the … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment

DISCing ‘The Band’ shows why their break-up was inevitable – and how to fix your team.

“This wheel shall explode.”I mentioned the DISC profile of The Band the other day in church. Here is a fuller explication, first posted last August. Note that in the video I put Levon Helm on Si, but that was a … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | 1 Comment

Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize cheapens true greatness even as it insults his actual achievements.

Most people who dress like this for work are Untouchables who collect their wages out of their instrument cases, mostly in coins. This man is an Irreproachable who just won the Nobel Prize for literature. What explains the difference in … Continue reading

Posted in Splendor! | Leave a comment