Parabola

Should you read a magazine where you have to goggle the title? Here is a small blurb found on the inside page of this magazine:



A Parabola is one of the most elegant forms in nature. Every path made by a thrown ball, every spout of water from a fountain, and every graceful arch of steel cables in a suspension bridge is a parabola.....it is a curving line that sails outward and returns with a new expansion-and perhaps a new content, like the flung net of a Japanese fisherman. It is the metaphorical journey to a particular point, and then back home, along a similar path....after which the traveler is essentially, irrevocably changed.



OK, this magazine takes itself seriously but shouldn't we sometimes take ourselves and our world seriously? Plus, you can read People in the same day and balance yourself out. I am addicted to magazines, all kinds and all quality. I have found the addiction to be heartbreaking, at times, because I get attached to quirky mags, like Parabola, and they promptly cease publication. I currently subscribe to Tricycle ( a Buddhist publication), Family Fun (children's craft/food magazine), Cloth, Paper, Scissors ( a collage, fiber artist mag ), and SewNews (sewing).



What do our magazine subscriptions say about us? Which magazines do we admit to reading and which are strictly on the down-low? I have tried for years to read The Economist because all my "wicked smart" friends recommend it. I am sorry to admit that I would rather see which celebrities have beach-ready bodies than what the trading in Hong Kong is doing to the global economy. On the other hand, each article in the New Yorker holds my interest but if I subscribed, I would be pulled away from family and friends much too often.



Well, thumbing through Parabola for this post, I realize it is subscription-worthy, so I'm adding it to the list. Each issue features a theme and the summer issue is entitled "Water."



Check out it out: http://www.parabola.org/


Here is the ending quote from the article "A Sense of Wonder":


The beginning of philosophy is to feel a sense of wonder. Plato



I wonder if I am journeying to or coming back, irrevocably changed?