That stone just keeps on rolling,
Bringing me some real bad news.
Takers get the honey,
Givers sing the blues.
Robin Trower
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Sunday, July 02, 2017
Thursday, June 15, 2017
Friday, June 09, 2017
Virtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together.
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Labels:
ambition,
bureaucracy,
diplomacy,
government,
international relations,
Montaigne,
politics,
power
Friday, May 19, 2017
The only remedy, the only rule, and the sole doctrine for avoiding the
evils by which mankind is surrounded, whatever they are, is to resolve
to bear them so far as our nature permits, or to put an end to them
courageously and promptly.
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Labels:
courage,
life ideas,
Montaigne,
purpose,
reason,
reflection
Sunday, April 02, 2017
Sunday, March 05, 2017
The Authoritarian Personality
• Rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values.
• Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealised moral authorities of the in-group.
• Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded.
• Tendency to…condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values.
• The belief in mystical determinants of the individual’s fate….
• Preoccupation with the dominance- submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures….
• Generalized hostility, vilification of the human.
• The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses.
• Exaggerated concern with sexual “goings-on.”
From a March 23, 2017 New York Review piece on the Frankfurt School: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/03/23/frankfurt-school-headquarters-neo-marxism/
• Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealised moral authorities of the in-group.
• Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded.
• Tendency to…condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values.
• The belief in mystical determinants of the individual’s fate….
• Preoccupation with the dominance- submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures….
• Generalized hostility, vilification of the human.
• The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses.
• Exaggerated concern with sexual “goings-on.”
From a March 23, 2017 New York Review piece on the Frankfurt School: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/03/23/frankfurt-school-headquarters-neo-marxism/
Labels:
authoritarianism,
capitalism,
criticism,
fascism,
Freud,
Marx,
personality,
politics
Friday, March 03, 2017
The real objective must always be the good life for all the people. International machinery will mean something to the common man throughout the world only when it is translated into terms that he can understand: peace, bread, housing, clothing, education, good health, and above all, the right to walk with dignity on the world's great boulevards.
Ralph J. Bunche, Mont Tremblant, Canada (1942)
Ralph J. Bunche, Mont Tremblant, Canada (1942)
Labels:
globalism,
international relations,
peace,
Ralph Bunche,
United Nations
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Voices in My Head
[W]hat a meditative poem contributes to the history of consciousness is a
reenactment in real time of the volatile inner life of a human being.
Such a poem does not present itself as plot or character portrayal or
argument, but rather ... as a hypothesis .... and include[s] waverings, self-contradictions,
repudiations, aspirations, and doubts; they are not offered as a
philosophical system.
Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books (February 23, 2017)
Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books (February 23, 2017)
Monday, January 16, 2017
The first step in dealing with the madness of the political world is not to let it make you crazy.... Fanaticism always seems foolish until it locks you up.
Adam Gopnik, Mixed Up: Montaigne On Trial (New Yorker, Jan 16, 2017)
Adam Gopnik, Mixed Up: Montaigne On Trial (New Yorker, Jan 16, 2017)
Sunday, December 11, 2016
During his later years he has often said—and many a man has had, and will have, to say the same—that he had learned these people too late.
Sir Richard Francis Burton, Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome
Sir Richard Francis Burton, Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome
Labels:
abroad,
Benin,
colonialism,
diplomacy,
international relations,
prudence
Saturday, November 05, 2016
All economies have winners and losers. It does not take a sophisticated
algorithm to figure out that the winners in the decades ahead are going
to be those who own the robots, for they will have vanquished labor with
their capital.
Sue Halpern, Our Driverless Future (New York Review of Noveber 24, 2016)
Sue Halpern, Our Driverless Future (New York Review of Noveber 24, 2016)
Labels:
change,
future,
inequality,
robots,
technology
Saturday, October 08, 2016
Modern media ... have always been based on the reselling of human attention to advertisers.
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (October 27, 2016)
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (October 27, 2016)
Labels:
advertisement,
capitalism,
civilization,
culture,
decline,
economy,
future,
history,
humanity,
illusion,
information,
internet,
media,
modernity
Monday, September 19, 2016
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Labels:
decline,
democracy,
election 2016,
Shakespeare
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.
From a spokesman for a airship with some problems (August 2016).
From a spokesman for a airship with some problems (August 2016).
Labels:
ambivalence,
boldness,
fortitude,
mistakes,
zen
Monday, August 22, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Gnostics.... We maintain that the world is an illusion. The unconscious self is
consubstantial with perfection, but because of a tragic fall it is
thrown into a foreign domain that is completely alien to its true being.
It’s always a fall, a tragic fall, and here we are. That’s it, in a
nutshell.
Stuff, Joy Williams (The New Yorker, July 25, 2016)
Stuff, Joy Williams (The New Yorker, July 25, 2016)
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
As we move up our space/time-line, what will be has been, what has been remains, now is just now.
An errant thought.
An errant thought.
Labels:
awareness,
being,
contemplation,
existence,
life,
reality,
reflection,
time
Saturday, April 02, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Who can fathom the soundless depths?
Jules Verne, riffing on the Book of Ecclesiastes in his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne, riffing on the Book of Ecclesiastes in his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Labels:
Bible,
Jules Verne,
life,
oceanic,
universe
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Capitalism is a partnership between governors and merchants that secures the power of both.... merchants grow rich because state power protects them or looks away when the time is right.
Martha Howell, The New York Review (April 7, 2016)
Martha Howell, The New York Review (April 7, 2016)
Thursday, February 11, 2016
In essence, the planet runs on a cycle of water-splitting by photosynthesis to form oxygen and the production of water by respiration.
Paul G. Falkowski in Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
Paul G. Falkowski in Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
Sunday, February 07, 2016
Today, not carrying a smartphone indicates eccentricity, social marginalization, or old age.
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (February 55, 2016)
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (February 55, 2016)
Labels:
America,
change,
civilization,
modernity,
smartphone
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
It was impossible for any one to open his grief to a neighbor and to concert measures to defend himself, as he would have
had to speak either to one whom he did not know, or whom he knew but did
not trust.
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Love of country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I felt
when secure in my rights as a citizen.... the true lover of his country
is not he who consents to lose it unjustly rather than attack it, but
he who longs for it so much that he will go all lengths to recover it.
Alcibiades, as quoted by Thucydides, (The History of the Peloponnesian War)
Alcibiades, as quoted by Thucydides, (The History of the Peloponnesian War)
Labels:
Alcibiades,
Athens,
democracy,
exile,
Greece,
imperialism,
patriotism,
Thucydides
Friday, January 22, 2016
It will be said, perhaps, that democracy is neither wise nor equitable,
but that the holders of property are also the best fitted to rule. I
say, on the contrary, first, that the word demos, or people, includes
the whole state, oligarchy only a part; next, that if the best guardians
of property are the rich, and the best counselors the wise, none can
hear and decide so well as the many; and that all these talents,
severally and collectively, have their just place in a democracy. But an
oligarchy gives the many their share of the danger, and not content
with the largest part takes and keeps the whole of the profit.
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Labels:
democracy,
oligarchy,
politics,
Thucydides
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Try to do what you do without mockery of our heartbroken little era. To mock is easy.
Anne Carson, 1=1, New Yorker of January 11, 2016
Anne Carson, 1=1, New Yorker of January 11, 2016
Friday, January 01, 2016
Athenians: Aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both;
since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only
in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can
and the weak suffer what they must....
Melians: As we think, at any rate, it is expedient —we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest— that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current....
Athenians: Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can..... It is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.
Thucydides (Book Five), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Melians: As we think, at any rate, it is expedient —we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest— that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current....
Athenians: Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can..... It is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.
Thucydides (Book Five), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Labels:
Athens,
conflict,
diplomacy,
empire,
Greece,
imperialism,
international relations,
justice,
prudence,
Thucydides,
war
Thursday, December 31, 2015
It is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for,
and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy.
Thucydides (Book Four), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides (Book Four), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted
fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws,
and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that they
cannot show their wit in more important matters.
Thucydides (Book Three), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides (Book Three), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Labels:
ambivalence,
Athens,
Greece,
politics,
rhetoric,
Thucydides
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
There can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union
between communities that is worth the name , unless the parties be
persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally congenial the one to
the other; since from difference in feeling springs also difference in
conduct.
Thucydides (Chapter IV), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides (Chapter IV), The History of the Peloponnesian War
Labels:
conflict,
friends,
international relations,
Thucydides
Monday, October 26, 2015
[Pericles] told them to wait quietly, to pay attention to their marine, to attempt no new conquests, and to expose the city to no hazards during the war, and doing this, promised them a favourable result. What they did was the very contrary, allowing private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently quite foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to themselves and to their allies— projects whose success would only conduce to the honour and advantage of private persons, and whose failure entailed certain disaster on the country in the war.... each grasping at supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude.
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
"Or as [John Gray] put it in Straw Dogs: The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industralisation, 'Western civilization' or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate."
David Bromwich, "Are We ‘Exceptionally Rapacious Primates’?", The New York Review of Books (November 5, 2015)
David Bromwich, "Are We ‘Exceptionally Rapacious Primates’?", The New York Review of Books (November 5, 2015)
Monday, October 19, 2015
Human beings ... may be divided simply into those who know they are acting and those who do not. True philosophers belong to the first group. The second encompasses, among others, utopian capitalists and Communists, the fanatics of the religious wars of the seventeenth century and the jihadists of the twenty-first.
David Bromwich, "Are We ‘Exceptionally Rapacious Primates’?", The New York Review of Books (November 5, 2015)
David Bromwich, "Are We ‘Exceptionally Rapacious Primates’?", The New York Review of Books (November 5, 2015)
Labels:
fanaticism,
humanity,
naked apes,
philosophy,
religion
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
Why
are we so often awake? What is the purpose of being awake? I mean,
besides for ten minutes of eating, a little bit of romance. Once that’s
over, why are we not immediately again asleep?”
Rivka Galchen, Usl at the Stadium (The New Yorker, October 12, 2015)
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Your country has a right to your services in sustaining the glories of her position. These are a common source of pride to you all, and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share its honors. You should remember also that what you are fighting against is not merely slavery as an exchange for independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the animosities incurred in its exercise. Besides, to recede is no longer possible.... For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.
Pericles, as quoted by Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War
Pericles, as quoted by Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War
Labels:
America,
Athens,
empire,
imperialism,
Pericles,
Thucydides,
war
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and execution.... they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine.... they are never at home.... they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (Translated by Richard Crawley; Book 1, Chapter 3)
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (Translated by Richard Crawley; Book 1, Chapter 3)
Labels:
America,
Athens,
Greece,
history,
Thucydides
Sunday, June 28, 2015
[The Greeks] never pretended that their gods were always benevolent or omnipotent in human affairs... What was important was the maintenance of dignity and self-respect in the face of what the gods or fate decreed.
Charles Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Charles Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Monday, June 22, 2015
The
early [Greek] philosophers were concerned with understanding the
nature of the cosmos.... They appear to have shared a belief that the
world system, the kosmos, was subject to a divine force which gave it
an underlying and orderly background. Where they got this idea,
which is a far cry from the Homeric world of gods, is unknown –
possibly from eastern mythology. It proved fundamental to the
speculations which followed.
Charles Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Labels:
cosmology,
Greece,
Homer,
philosophy,
reason
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Do not bring down the men of the magistrates' court or incite the just
men to rebel. Do not pay too much attention to him clad in shining
garments, and have regard for him who is shabbily dressed. Do not
accept the reward of the powerful man or persecute the weal for him.
Advice from fathers to sons in Middle Kingdom Egypt as quoted by Charles Freeman in Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Advice from fathers to sons in Middle Kingdom Egypt as quoted by Charles Freeman in Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Labels:
advice,
Ancient Egypt,
civilization,
wisdom
Sunday, May 03, 2015
Everything likes to live where it will age the most slowly, and gravity pulls it there. The greater the slowing of time, the stronger gravity's pull.... At the surface of a black hole, time is slowed to a halt.
Kip Thorne, The Science of Interstellar
Kip Thorne, The Science of Interstellar
Labels:
black hole,
cosmology,
Einstein,
gravity,
relativity,
sci-fi
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
If I calculate the average annual quota required to limit global warming to two degrees this century I find that simply maintaining a typical American single-family home exceeds it in two weeks. Absent any indication of direct harm, what makes intuitive moral sense is to live the life I was given, be a good citizen, be kind to the people near me, and conserve as well as I reasonably can.... [Climate change] deeply confuses the human brain, which evolved to focus on the present, not the far future, and on readily perceivable movements, not slow and probabilistic developments.
Jonathan Franzen, "Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation?" in the New Yorker of April 6, 2015
Jonathan Franzen, "Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation?" in the New Yorker of April 6, 2015
Labels:
animals,
biodiversity,
birds,
climate change,
conservation,
ecology,
plants
Monday, March 16, 2015
Personal happiness is profoundly conditioned by the social and political surroundings.
Tim Parks, "Revolutionary Italy: The Masterwork," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Tim Parks, "Revolutionary Italy: The Masterwork," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Sunday, March 15, 2015
[T]wo centuries ago ... Europeans made a wager on history: that the more they extended human freedom, the happier they would be. ... [T]hat wager has been lost.
Mark Lilla, "Slouching Toward Mecca," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Mark Lilla, "Slouching Toward Mecca," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Labels:
civilization,
happiness,
history,
liberalism
Saturday, March 14, 2015
[R]elying on the Internet for facts and figures is making us mindless sloths.... a study in Science ... demonstrates that the wealth of information readily available on the Internet disinclines users from remembering what they’ve found out.
Sue Halpern, "How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Sue Halpern, "How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over," New York Review (April 2, 2015)
Labels:
algorithms,
artificial intelligence,
culture,
future,
humanity,
inequality,
modernity,
morality,
power,
robots,
society,
technology
Friday, March 06, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.
Live long and prosper.
Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Live long and prosper.
Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Labels:
existence,
Leonard Nimoy,
life ideas,
singularity,
understanding
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Friday, February 06, 2015
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
All human rules are more or less idiotic, I suppose. It is best so, no
doubt. The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if
we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Monday, January 19, 2015
The totality of animals, the crushing majority of men, live without ever finding the least need for justification.
Michel Houellebecq, from his novel Submission as quoted by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker.
Michel Houellebecq, from his novel Submission as quoted by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker.
Labels:
blues,
humans,
morality,
naked apes,
wisdom
Saturday, January 10, 2015
We know the meaning of nothing but the words we use to describe it.
Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Twitter—that device helpfully enabling people to write faster than they can think.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, How the Murdoch Gang Got Away (New York Review, Jan 8, 2015)
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, How the Murdoch Gang Got Away (New York Review, Jan 8, 2015)
Labels:
cyberspace,
internet,
smartphone,
thinking,
Twitter
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of
our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome,
charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in
one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
Monday, December 01, 2014
It was as if he had left home to climb a mountain and was now stuck on
top of it, bivouacked above the tree line, free, but freezing, with no
way forward.
Tim Parks, The New Yorker (Reverend)
Tim Parks, The New Yorker (Reverend)
Sunday, November 30, 2014
The smartphone-bearing zombies plodding blindly down our sidewalks still
inhabit the real world even if their souls have gone elsewhere.
James Gleick, The New York Review of Dec. 18, 2014.
James Gleick, The New York Review of Dec. 18, 2014.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
My moment-by-moment happiness is pretty low, but my life satisfaction is great.
From The New York Review of Dec 4, 2014.
From The New York Review of Dec 4, 2014.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Thursday, September 25, 2014
The entitlement to believe what on careful reflection seems to be the
case, where there is no reason to doubt it, is the necessary condition
for being able to form any justified beliefs at all. ... The only way to pursue the truth is to consider what seems true, after
careful reflection of a kind appropriate to the subject matter, in
light of all the relevant data, principles, and circumstances.
Thomas Nagel, Listening to Reason (New York Review, October 9, 2014)
Thomas Nagel, Listening to Reason (New York Review, October 9, 2014)
Labels:
knowledge,
morality,
philosophy,
reason,
reflection,
truth
Thursday, September 18, 2014
The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility…. The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.
Albert Einstein, as quoted in the New York Review.
Albert Einstein, as quoted in the New York Review.
Labels:
cosmology,
Einstein,
existence,
nature,
providence
Monday, September 15, 2014
What we look for does not happen;
what we least expect is fashioned by the gods.
Euripides, Bacchae (as quoted from Robin Robertson in the Sept. 25, 2014 New York Review)
what we least expect is fashioned by the gods.
Euripides, Bacchae (as quoted from Robin Robertson in the Sept. 25, 2014 New York Review)
Labels:
Dionysus,
discernment,
Euripides,
existence,
gods,
illusion,
mortals,
tragedy,
understanding
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
The earth, the water, the fire, the air, and the void -- these indeed are the five principles by which the entire universe is pervaded.
Abhinavagupta, as quoted by Diana L. Eck in India: a Sacred Geography
Abhinavagupta, as quoted by Diana L. Eck in India: a Sacred Geography
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Every technology will alienate you from some part of your life. That is its job. Your job is to notice.
Michael Harris, as quoted by The Economist (August 16, 2014)
Michael Harris, as quoted by The Economist (August 16, 2014)
Labels:
awareness,
civilization,
contemplation,
discernment,
future,
intellect,
internet,
modernity,
smart phones,
technology
Friday, August 08, 2014
Mammalian minds evolved to track external dangers and opportunities.... Only humans acquired an ability to focus solely on internal thoughts.... [But] people go to surprisingly great lengths to avoid being stranded with their own thoughts.
Science News, People Find Solitude Distressing
Science News, People Find Solitude Distressing
Labels:
awareness,
consciousness,
contemplation,
evolution,
humans,
thinking
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
Today’s news is always old news. The innocent get slaughtered and someone makes up excuses.
Charles Simic, Portable Hell (NYR)
Charles Simic, Portable Hell (NYR)
Labels:
blame,
blues,
chaos,
Charles Simic,
civilization,
decline,
hell,
history,
humans,
naked apes,
war
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Shiva, they say, is twofold…. utterly transcendent and … “without parts”.… the source and essence of all…. But Shiva is also “with parts” [and] shows himself visibly in many forms…. The divine expands, evolving as if from seed, and stretching into the immense, indeed infinite reality of the cosmos, which lives and breathes.
From India: A Sacred Geography (Ch 5) by Diana L. Eck
From India: A Sacred Geography (Ch 5) by Diana L. Eck
Friday, April 25, 2014
There is no shore on the other side
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Labels:
afterlife,
death,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
life,
sea
Saturday, April 05, 2014
I cannot help thinking that liberal civilization—the rule of laws, not
men, of argument in place of force, of compromise in place of
violence—runs deeply against the human grain and is achieved and
sustained only by the most unremitting struggle against human nature.
The liberal virtues—tolerance, compromise, reason—remain as valuable as
ever, but they cannot be preached to those who are mad with fear or mad
with vengeance. In any case, preaching always rings hollow. We must be
prepared to defend them by force, and the failure of the sated,
cosmopolitan nations to do so has left the hungry nations sick with
contempt for us.
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff
Labels:
civil society,
democracy,
humans,
liberalism,
politics,
tolerance
Monday, March 10, 2014
It doesn't have to be understood to be real.
Peter Lanza
Peter Lanza
Labels:
belief,
blues,
contemplation,
existence,
insight,
life,
misfortune,
reality
Monday, March 03, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Consciousness was indeed real. It had observable energy. That energy translated into movement, into work. That energy ordered information, the stuff of the world, the matter, and recycled that order back into itself, lifting itself to ever higher ground.
Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light Music
Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light Music
Labels:
awareness,
consciousness,
cosmology,
existence,
humans,
information,
intellect,
phenomenon,
quantum physics,
reality,
singularity,
soul,
thinking,
thought,
universe
Friday, February 21, 2014
Consciousness was firmly embedded in the fabric of space and time, a material part of its vibrational energy. Consciousness, or mind, was not split off from matter, hovering outside it.... Instead, consciousness was within matter, of matter. It was matter looking at itself and being astonished. It was the point seeing the wave, or the wave seeing the point. Consciousness was quantum electrodynamism. Time turned back upon itself. Time splintering. Time strutting loose among the energy levels, only slightly stilled, slightly caught, in that glance called consciousness, the observer, the energy that made it into this and not-this, live cat and dead cat.
Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light Music
Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light Music
Labels:
awareness,
consciousness,
electrodynamics,
light,
mind,
QED,
quantum physics,
reality,
relativity,
Schrodinger,
sci-fi,
time
Friday, February 14, 2014
Empowering friends, picking your battles, always checking
principle with prudence, never overestimating American capacities, but
never overestimating the enemy’s strength: this is best seen not as a
strategy for all contingencies but as a disposition, a habit of mind, a
temperament.
Michael Ignatieff on George Kennan's approach to US foreign policy, America's Melancholic Hero (The New York Review of Books, March 6, 2014).
Labels:
discernment,
foreign policy,
Kennan,
moderation,
prudence,
statesman,
strategy,
United States,
wisdom
Monday, February 03, 2014
Whenever there is a withering of the law
and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides,
then I manifest Myself.
For the salvation of the righteous
and the destruction of such as do evil,
for the firm establishing of the Law,
I come to birth, age after age.
Bhagavad Gita, Book IV, Sutra 5, 7, 8
and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides,
then I manifest Myself.
For the salvation of the righteous
and the destruction of such as do evil,
for the firm establishing of the Law,
I come to birth, age after age.
Bhagavad Gita, Book IV, Sutra 5, 7, 8
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Ullrich told me about a small boy who was dying of neuroblastoma. “His mother made it very clear to him that she would see him again in Heaven someday. ... But he was worried about how he would find her. So they made a plan to meet in the front left corner of Heaven."
Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker, "Lives Less Ordinary" (January 20, 2014)
Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker, "Lives Less Ordinary" (January 20, 2014)
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Christmas time ... a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable,
pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long
calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of
people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers
to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on
other journeys.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Sunday, November 17, 2013
This is essentially a people's contest. On the side
of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form
and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the
condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to
clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered
start and a fair chance, in the race of life.
Abraham Lincoln on the effort to preserve the United States government in America's Civil War, from his First Message to Congress, July 4, 1861.
Abraham Lincoln on the effort to preserve the United States government in America's Civil War, from his First Message to Congress, July 4, 1861.
Labels:
America,
Civil War,
democracy,
government,
Lincoln
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming!
Blood, thou art blood.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming!
Blood, thou art blood.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
Labels:
appearance,
humanity,
illusion,
love,
misery,
premonition,
Shakespeare,
sin,
wisdom
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a minimo divinum est
(“not to be limited by the greatest and yet to be contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”).
Quoted by Pope Francis on the vision of St. Ignatius
Labels:
cosmology,
discernment,
divine,
existence,
God,
insight,
Pope Francis,
providence,
quantum physics,
religion,
sagacity,
understanding,
universe,
wisdom
Monday, September 02, 2013
You should only pick your own nose.
Heard from a nice lady in Iowa.
Heard from a nice lady in Iowa.
Labels:
conversation,
foreign policy,
friends,
listening,
not doing,
sagacity,
tolerance
Saturday, August 03, 2013
Relationships were ... utterly mysterious, they took place between two subconscious minds, and whatever the surface trickle thought was going on could not be trusted to be right.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Labels:
awareness,
consciousness,
love,
relationships
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Labels:
change,
civilization,
consciousness,
cosmology,
doing,
existence,
freedom,
history,
intelligence,
life,
man,
Mars,
NASA,
possibility,
purpose,
reality,
space travel,
understanding,
universe
Sunday, July 21, 2013
To Evening
You set me and my thoughts a-wandering
along the path to the eternal void; and then
this wretched time flees, and with it
the throng of woes afflicting it and me;
and while I behold your peacefulness, that warlike
spirit that rages within me sleeps.
From "Alla sera" by Ugo Foscolo, translated by Allen Shearer, seen on a Metro bus
along the path to the eternal void; and then
this wretched time flees, and with it
the throng of woes afflicting it and me;
and while I behold your peacefulness, that warlike
spirit that rages within me sleeps.
From "Alla sera" by Ugo Foscolo, translated by Allen Shearer, seen on a Metro bus
Labels:
being,
consciousness,
contemplation,
evening,
existence,
life,
melancholy,
pensier,
poetry,
rage,
reality,
thinking,
time,
understanding,
wisdom
Saturday, July 06, 2013
"Creation" in [the] Hindu view of things is designated by the word srishthi, literally the "pouring forth" of the universe from the source. As a complex plant or tree grows, bursting forth and developing from the simple unitary seed, or as a complex creature emerges and grows from an embryo, so is this whole and diverse universe poured forth from the ... very body of the divine. There is no God who stands apart from it and creates it.... everything is a manifestation that has poured forth from the living body of the Whole, what some would call God.... Within this systemic whole, everything is alive and interrelated.
Diana L. Eck, India: A Sacred Geography
Diana L. Eck, India: A Sacred Geography
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
When you're surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up.
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
[History] doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.
Mark C. Elliott, quoted in "Laptop U", The New Yorker (May 20, 2013)
Mark C. Elliott, quoted in "Laptop U", The New Yorker (May 20, 2013)
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
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