Maurice Leavitt | Personal Essays, Reflections and Travel Writing

Welcome to my personal travel and reflection blog.

It all started with the early days of the internet. When 56k modems, email, and file sharing first connected many of us.
Back then, I was downloading last night’s concert set-list from a blinking DOS screen. Writing personal essays for my college classes, doing travel writing in a journal… long before today’s high-speed connectivity and mobile sharing.

As the web grew through HTML pages, blogs, and online aliases, so did more freedom. To write about the things that mattered — even the darker topics that once felt unsafe to share openly. Now, with age and retirement, I no longer need an alias. This space is a playground: a mix of personal essays, travel writing, and reflections on technology, culture, and community. I get inspiration from writers like David Brooks and his reflections on moral development. He reminds me of the power of connection across life’s terrain.

Maybe you’ll find something here that resonates. Maybe not. Either way, it’s an ongoing exercise in expression and connection. If you enjoy what you read, drop me a line.

Glimpse of the Journey

Start Here

The Brain Dump

Let’s call this what it is: a space for mental gymnastics, restless questions, and the occasional dignified rant. Writing has never been my idea of fun. As a kid, it felt like punishment. As an adult, it still kind-of does — except now. I’m making the choice to be in public, with no teacher to grade me.

Why? Because something shifted. Retirement stripped away the excuses. Grief burned away the illusions. Travel — and life in Thailand — forced me to notice what’s hidden in plain sight. I realized that avoiding the blank page was just another way of avoiding myself.

This isn’t a lifestyle blog or a tidy “how-to” guide. It’s messier than that. You’ll find personal essays about connection and exile, markets and morality, sexuality and eroticism, belonging and betrayal. The through-line is simple … a refusal to look away from the things that make us human, even when they unsettle us.

Because here’s the truth: human desire and dignity are not opposites. Erotic energy is not something to tame or exile; it’s the same current that runs through intimacy, creativity, and connection. When we separate sex from spirit … body from belonging, or honesty from love, we fracture ourselves — and we call the fracture “normal.”

Some will say this is overthinking. I call it practice. Practice in asking better questions. Practice in refusing to live by default. If something here resonates — or unsettles you — good. That means it’s alive.
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