Random Thoughts Part 8

I have stopped holding doors open for women. I have found that it only makes them dependent upon others and unable to open doors themselves.

Once art served to educate and edify, now it distracts and amuses.

What is wisdom? It is the result of multiple paradigms brought to their intellectual furthest reaches and balanced and merged together. It is something the fundamentalist, the person who only sees life through a single lens, can never hope to achieve.

All deeper understanding starts with admitting you do not know. It is the letting go of the simple in order to chase the complex.

It is a bias of our age to believe that if we were to show the technological advances of our time to our forefathers that they would be amazed and not horrified.

Government, like guns, should not be demonized but kept from being owned by criminals.

The difference between a whore and a politician is that a whore sells what belongs to her whereas the politician sells what has been entrusted to him.

It’s hard for us to see as a problem what has been for so long a solution. But balance is everything and yesterday’s good can become tomorrow’s ill if not in proper proportion.

Expand what you imagine is possible and you will expand what you are able accomplish.

People eventually come to the realization that their perception of life is not the truth. But most prefer fantasy to reality and retreat from what they have learned.

Fear simplifies everything. The more you fear, the clearer things seem to you.

The more paradigms you can hold in your mind at the same time, the closer to the truth your vision will be. But you are limited. Never forget that.

We live our lives blindly—even the best of us—not seeing to any great degree causes and effects. Remember bravery and kindness as they will help to offset the ignorance that we will never overcome.

Sometimes you come to realize you understand something but you can’t explain it to anyone, not even yourself. This is perhaps the most sacred kind of understanding.

Never stray too long or too far from the real, never invest too much in a single paradigm to the exclusion of all others.

The whole essence of life is to push forward, like plants reaching towards the sun. All life is the same in this regard, and it is only our matter, not our energy, that makes us different.

To find happiness later in life means that you have faced life’s trials and over come them. It means that you have never given in to the thoughts of your darker half, never stopped believing, never stopped searching. There is a sweetness to this unlike any other. How many have listened to despair when they were mere yards from the finish line?

Contrary to popular belief, you can make people think, but they will hate you for it.

We try to turn what is into what we think it is. This is a mistake. Unless we succeed, in which case it is a miracle. Miracles do happen.

Just remember when the world around you starts looking crazier and crazier, it is just your imperfect paradigm dying.

Misunderstandings are seldom accidental. Either the listener wishes to take offence or else the perceived slight was indeed intended.