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All essays publicly available.
Unsolicited Stranger
Posted on May 10, 2019 by Kēphen
Unsolicited Stranger Over the past eleven years I have witnessed and personally experienced hostility and aggression from other men due to my sexual orientation. It has never occurred in person, but it has occurred online, where people are much braver and less filtered in…
Category: All, LGBTTags: *See All Posts, Anger, Attention, Bisexual, Eliciting, Fear, Gay, Homophobic, Internet Troll, LGBT, Online Bullying, Self-Hatred, Taunting, Unknown
The Dying Light of Unrequited Love
Posted on April 16, 2019 by Kēphen
The Dying Light of Unrequited Love We spend most of our lives trying to emotionally connect with other people, only to realize that we cannot emotionally connect with most of the people we meet. I could probably write a book about the experiences I’ve…
Freckles: Chapter Eighteen
Posted on March 20, 2019 by Kēphen
Evan announced that he was done eating by burping loudly in my direction and giving me a half-ass grin, as if to gloat about eating more than me. For being so skinny the kid put down more slices than I could comfortably consume. I…
Category: All, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Fun, Inspiration, LGBT, Love
Liberation and a Return to the Sacred
Posted on January 21, 2019 by Kēphen
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ~Gary Snyder Liberation and a Return to the Sacred Buddhism has a long history with the forest. Siddhartha Gautama fled the comforts of the Shakya Kingdom and immersed himself with the lands beyond to…
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Depression and Suicide, Environment, ScienceTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Buddhism, Ego, Forest Bathing, Forests, Four Noble Truths, Liberation, Mahayana, Mental Health, Nature, Nature Therapy, Pan, Pantheism, Sacred, Self, Siddhartha Gautama, Taoism, Woodlands
The Perfect Life
Posted on January 20, 2019 by Kēphen
The Perfect Life: An Unexpected Loss In order to protect the identity of his family, I will only refer to the young man in this article as “A.J.” A.J. was in his senior year of high school, where he was active in sports, playing…
Love Me Not
Posted on January 2, 2019 by Kēphen
Love Me Not: A Conversation About Mental Health & Relationships If you’ve read my previous work, you know that I’m often very personal and brutally honest about my experiences and my mistakes. This essay will be no different. I want to share with you…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, LGBT, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, American Midwest, Behavioral Health, Bullying, Dating, Erectile Dysfunction, Growing Up, Life, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Performance Anxiety, Relationships, Romance, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Experiences, Sexuality
Chasing the Westward Sun
Posted on November 12, 2018 by Kēphen
Chasing the Westward Sun: One Week and 3,500 Miles In the summer of 2017 I went on a one-week 3,500 mile road trip through Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. The road trip had spawned after the death of my mom the year…
Category: All, Environment, Human ConditionTags: *See All Posts, America, Cattle, Childhood, Choteau Montana, Colorado, Creek, Farm Life, Farmland, Glacier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Inspiration, Jackson Lake, Life, Memories, Midwest, Montana, Nature, Parachute Colorado, Pinedale Wyoming, Road Trip, Rocky Mountain National Park, Valley, Woods, Wyoming, Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park
Life After
Posted on October 24, 2018 by Kēphen
Recovery for me is a multi-faceted term. It means acknowledging my behavioral condition, understanding it and understanding that I and it are not one in the same – that I am more than my condition. It means that I recognize the signs and symptoms…
The Past That’s Not Forgotten
Posted on October 22, 2018 by Kēphen
[Warning: this article discusses the sexual assault of men and boys and may not be appropriate for readers under the age of thirteen] The Past That’s Not Forgotten According to the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, 54% of reported sexual assault victims in the U.S….
In the Twilight of Memory
Posted on September 22, 2018 by Kēphen
In the Twilight of Memory Calling to me in the distance, I can hear them all say my name. Reaching out from the past, from moments that used to be. I drift beyond the precipice of wakefulness, I let go of my consciousness and…
Category: All, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Arrow of Time, Childhood, Memories, Moments in Time, Remembering
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List of all Articles & Essays
- Unsolicited Stranger
- The Dying Light of Unrequited Love
- Freckles: Chapter Eighteen
- Liberation and a Return to the Sacred
- The Perfect Life
- Love Me Not
- Chasing the Westward Sun
- Life After
- The Past That’s Not Forgotten
- In the Twilight of Memory
- Out of the Darkness
- U.S. Behavioral Health and the Workplace
- Prajñāpāramitā Part II: The Heart of Insight
- Moments in Time
- To Be Acknowledged As Existing
- Choose To Live
- The Power of Belief
- Lords of the Wild
- The Inexplicable
- How To Research Your Family Ancestry
- Ben Tre: Keep the Loneliness Warm
- Genetics: The Basics of How You’ve Come To Be
- What the Story of Hiro-Kala Teaches Us
- When A Parent Dies
- Prajñāpāramitā Part I: The Diamond that Cuts Through Illusion
- The Passenger
- His Light Carries On
- From Samanera to Bhikkhu: The Life of a Traditional Theravada Monk
- How To Start Eating Better
- The Macrocosm Perspective
- Human Sexuality Defined
- Alone In The Dark
- Nationalism and Police Brutality: The Deafening Sound of Ignorance
- The Middle Way and the Turning of the Wheel
- Identity Politics and the Slow Death of the American Moral Landscape
- The Thousand Year Journey
- His Empty Soul
- The Choice That Never Was
- No Arrival, No Destination, Just Being
- Respect For Living Things
- Abortion, Abstinence, Abuse, Birth Control, Teen Sex, and Unwanted Pregnancy
- The Algorithm Specs Behind Facebook’s “People You May Know” Suggestions
- The Darkest Corners of the Cyber World: Sexual Predation and Exploitation
- Freckles: Chapter Seventeen
- Everywhere You Go, There You Are
- Words To Live By
- Transgender in America
- On Faith and Fallacy: My Journey Out Of Christianity
- The Wall, Illegal Immigration, and the U.S. – Mexican Border
- Abortion
- Lotus in a Lake of Fire
- How Climate Change Affects Our Lives
- Muslim Refugees, Christianity and the Future of Freedom
- In Search of Self
- On Labels and Identity
- It’s Been A While
- Freckles: Chapter Sixteen
- Freckles: Chapter Fifteen
- Freckles: Chapter Fourteen
- Freckles: Chapter Thirteen
- Freckles: Chapter Twelve
- Freckles: Chapter Eleven
- Freckles: Chapter Ten
- Freckles: Chapter Nine
- More Than Just Friends
- Freckles: Chapter Eight
- Freckles: Chapter Seven
- Freckles: Chapter Six
- Freckles: Chapter Five
- Ubiquitous
- The Four Cornerstones
- Freckles: Chapter Four
- Freckles: Chapter Three
- Freckles: Chapter Two
- The Darklord
- Crash
- Freckles: Chapter One
- Anger, Violence, Death, and Regret
- In My Own Words
- If You Could Only See
- Of God
- Here and There, Now and Then
- The Erosion of the Sagacious American Intellect
- Lemmings and Other Things
- Self-Reflection: To End A Cold, Damp Day
- The Man In The Mirror
- Orientation: A Two-Thousand Word Essay
- Two Journeys, One Life
- Keep You: Part Two
- Keep You: Part One
- The Demon In Me
- A River of Undying Flames
- Through My Eyes
- A Letter on the Intrinsic Threads of the Human Heart
- Autumn Calls You Home
- These Walls, That Shadow, Those Memories and This Soul
- Rewriting the Psychology of Homosexuality
- Awaiting Daybreak: Regression and a Nation Asunder
- Walk With Me
- To Die In A Closet
- Execution
- Meditation
- Depression and Iron: A Love Story
- The Audacity of Individuality
- A Little Something on Self-Acceptance
- A Portal to My Mind
- The LGBT Community vs. The Rest of Society
- The Inheritance of Peace: Here and Now
- At Peace With Goodbye
- Knowing the Road Ahead
- The Subjugation of a Christian Nation
- The Starry Night
- The Great Rift of the Global Soul
- Messages
- Understanding Evil
- The Abandonment of Religion: The Finding of God
- The Interconnectedness of Religion and Philosophy
- Asylum of My Mind: A Beckoning to Darker Places
- My Heart in the Sun
- The Sun Will Rise Again
- From Under the Thumbs of Demons
- A Letter To My Sister
- The Poet’s Path: A Life of Pain
- Premonitions and Restitution
- Playing Chess With Demons
- The War of Depression: A Synopsis
