Random Thoughts (Part 19)

If only money was as capable of caring about people as much as people care about money.

Do not strip away life’s little illusions, for without them life is merely death, flowers merely dirt. And then we are unafraid to die but afraid to live. For belief is life, all else is nothing.

  

Genius must ever border on madness. It must see things as no one else does, must come from a viewpoint different than the world’s. Both must separate themselves from the world, to believe that what others accept as obvious is wrong, to confidently disagree with the commonly held beliefs. Both are a step away from being thought the other, sometimes depending on little strokes of luck.

How many psychologists, rather than focusing on how to raise healthy children, study instead how many times a child has to pester his parents before they take him to McDonald’s?

Genius doesn’t have to be right, it just has to be honest.

It takes no great wisdom to see the problems that lie ahead for an addict if he follows his addiction. Similarly, it is not difficult to diagnose the illness, much harder to treat it. So too there is no great skill in the role of the prophet who sees a society heading in the wrong direction. The trick is in convincing a society to change its course.

How many more guns will be required before we achieve world peace?

There are eras when all you want to do is keep up on the newest thing, since new ideas and perspectives are being floated about at every instant. Then there are eras when you are best to retreat into the past, where the genius that once existed will always be available. From those who spend their time in the past shall come the vibrant eras of tomorrow.

The saddest thing about life is that we can see it but never really taste it. It is there, it is real, we know it. And yet we can never get closer than yearning, for our itch is never fully scratched.

I don’t want us to be the species that ruins it for the rest. What we do not consume we poison. Sometimes we do both. Perhaps that is how we shall end, by consuming the poisons we have created.

Build on questions, do not build on answers. Answers are the death of thought.

When trying to understand why events worked out the way they did, never overlook random chance and stupidity as contributing factors.

If you are constantly criticizing the “other side” for their opinions without actually putting forth positive alternatives, don’t pretend you are not the problem.

Most people respond better to simple truths repeated often rather than extended stories that more fully encompass what is. They prefer rhythm to melody.

Books are like batteries for ideas. They can be stored away for ages, only to supply a spark to someone long after.

A thousand cultures used to have each their own stories, all based upon their experiences with nature. Now we have one story, based on marketing.

Notable moments of decline: when people began to express themselves through their choice of underwear.

We must deny the past’s opinions or we would not be able to tolerate what we have become.

Most people are not aware of their motivations, though they suffer from the illusion that they do.

The problem is a lot of people get paid a lot of money to tell lies, and no one is paid to speak the truth.

Damn right the world has a lot of problems, and I can tell you two of the main causes for them: those who think they have all the answers for them, and those who think there’s nothing they can do about them.

If patriotism is a scoundrel’s last refuge, then the concept of freedom is his first sales pitch.

  

We do not become bitter because we lose. We lose when we become bitter.

There are two problems with growing old: the first is all the things you have loved and thought would be around forever changing, the other is all the things you hated and couldn’t wait to see pass stick around.

I am enough of a conservative that when I walk through a crosswalk I don’t leave my safety in the hands of others, but I am enough of a liberal to appreciate the crosswalk being there.

You don’t need a gun to be brave nor do you need to engage in violence to show courage.

You have the right to do things you shouldn’t. Don’t.

A kiss was once more of a commitment to marriage than a child is nowadays.

If we do not remember our own sins while noticing the sins of others, we are merely adding to our own pile.

Random Thoughts Part 13

25 more ideas for blog posts waiting to be written. Or 25 concisely written epithets, your choice:

A nation run by bankers will never be out of debt.

A nation owned by weapons manufacturers will never know peace.

A nation that allows a small segment of its citizens to write the laws will never know justice.

And if these elements own the media, then we will never know the truth.

Knowledge is knowing.

Wisdom is knowing you do not know.

When we can no longer find anything to believe in, that is when it is up to us to become something to believe in.

Writing, as I suppose other forms of creative activity, is both hard work and the ultimate form of relaxation.

The rules of finance were written by rich people looking to get richer. That part about the “magic” of the market place was thrown in to make the workers feel better. You think they wrote the laws because they were selfless? You think it was to benefit you?

If you have a sufficient desire to do something you will not only find a rationalization for doing it, you will find a moral imperative for why it must be done.

Every man is a heretic to another. No two think exactly alike. What people mistake for exact same thought is in fact not thinking at all.

The problem with government is that it inevitably leads to a bureaucratic nightmare. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to spend the next eight hours on the phone with my insurance company.

There are always those who urge war and revolution as a way to rid the world of evil. If violence purged sin our world would be a Paradise.

We are not raising children to be free but to conform. When they are told rather than asked they are taught to obey rather than question. What kind of freedom can come from such teaching?

Most of the world’s problems begin when people decide that if some is good then more is better.

Imagine if all the discontent people felt was channeled towards changing our society instead of being quieted by prescription drugs.

The difference between a scientist and public relations expert is that a scientist does not answer when he is uncertain and a public relations expert is never uncertain.

There is nearly always an economic excuse for not doing the right thing.

The trouble with technology is that it is in the hands of people.

It’s not like there is anything new to say. We merely have to repeat the words of a play performed a thousand times before until we deliver the perfect performance.

Always try to see yourself in another person, even if to do so means you must see yourself as an idiot. It’s hard, but it’s never too far from the truth.

When yes and no are no longer sufficient answers, wisdom begins. Spirituality, too.

God is life, everything is alive, and love is the awareness of this.

How could a species smart enough to build atomic weapons be stupid enough to build atomic weapons?

Science is the process of disproving false gods. So is religion.

Reality is altered by belief just as it is maintained by disbelief.

The trick is to be tough and independent without becoming cruel and indifferent.

Our children’s minds are in the hands of corporations as firmly as German children’s minds were once in the hands of Nazis.

No one is so foolishly optimistic as they are when buying a lottery ticket or voting for a political candidate. 

Random Thoughts Part 12

If you are afraid to discuss your beliefs, they are not beliefs but prejudices.

How did we end up a society that pays someone to walk our dogs so we can drive our SUVs to the gym to hit the treadmill for an hour?

When I was growing up in the 70's we didn't have things like Facebook and Texting. If you wanted to send a message back then you had to knock on ceilings or pipes or tie ribbons to trees.

Give a man genetically modified food and he will eat for a day. Teach him to grow genetically modified crops and you will own his food supply for life.

Isn't blaming government for the abuses it sometimes enables kind of the same thing as blaming guns for the uses criminals put them to?

Life is like a box of chocolates: You get through what little actual good stuff there is right away, then you constantly fool yourself into believing there's still something good in whatever's left.

My dog has never done a useful thing in her 14 years on this planet, and yet I would jump in front of a car without a second's hesitation to try to save her. What can I learn from this? Perhaps that while being useful may help us and others to continue to live, to bring joy into other's lives makes life worth living. While she has never put food on the table, she is always happy to see me and in all the years I have known her, she has never once passed judgment on me, never once made me feel bad about who I am. But more than anything she has helped me to see through her eyes, to see the joy and soon forget the pain. Perhaps the ones we most appreciate, the ones we are willing to do the most for, are those who enable us to see the most of the miraculous in life.

  

Who you are and what you do today is most likely who you will be and what you will do tomorrow. You have it within your grasp now to be the person you wish to be, do the things you wish to do.

With all the money the government keeps taking from rich people, how come they keep getting richer?

The fact that the media is overwhelmingly liberal is proof the free market doesn't work.

The thing is, once the word liberal or conservative is mentioned, once the name of a certain person you don’t like is used, your mind rebels and rejects out of hand whatever is said, whether it is true or not. In choosing a side you automatically reject half the world, can no longer see colors but only black and white.

 We are not raising children to be free but to conform. When they are told rather than asked they are taught to obey rather than question. What kind of freedom can come from such teaching?

Random Thoughts Part 11

You will be a better human being if you spend some time gnawing on these bones for a while:

Fire is no doubt a wonderful thing, but it would be foolish to call for the unrestrained use of it. Mankind has learned, at some cost, the proper place for it and the danger that results in letting it go its own way. When will we learn the same about the free market?

We do not support firefighters by supporting fire, let alone arson. Why then do we pretend that it is a good idea to support war for the sake of the soldiers?

Those with the greatest faith are the ones who are willing to let go of simplistic answers in search of deeper truths. Score one for those who put their faith in science, but let us hope they do not become too comfortable with the truths they have discovered. 

When man compares himself to other of God's creatures, he likes to think of himself as a lion, standing alone and proud. But in fact, he is much closer in nature to a sheep. That is the only explanation for fashions. The only real difference between sheep and humans is that no one has ever been able to talk a sheep into killing his fellow sheep in the name of God and country.

If political ads cause people to turn off their TVs, then they have done some good.

Believing in an idea before one has the words for it or the evidence of its truth is a matter of faith. No creation can exist without faith. Without faith in the unseen, nothing new can come into this world.

The flower of peace shall never blossom by being watered with blood, except, perhaps, the blood of martyrs.

Eat only food that is made by God or made with love. Good food feeds both body and soul.

There are two theories of life: one believes there is an “us” and a “them”, the other is that there is only “us”. But just because I believe there is only us does not mean that some people don’t think of me as “them”. In fact, all those who do not believe in a “them” are seen as such by those who do.

Teachers would have the easiest job in the world if only parents did theirs adequately.

All art boils down to sex and death, and let’s face it, the sex is there to keep our minds off death.

A writer does not fully experience something until he has written about it.

Give that which, in giving, makes you richer. Give of your physical labor, which makes you strong. Give of your knowledge, and in doing so you will learn. Give love, and you will be more filled with love.

Don’t be excited about one aspect of life, be excited about life and have it shine through everything you do.

Random Thoughts Part 10

Group Think: a disease with obvious symptoms, for which each of us is thankfully immune.

Everything you do and say is being recorded and observed. But as long as you remain ignorant and compliant, you’ll be fine.

You know you’re getting old when your pride permits you to use “I’m getting old” as an excuse.

If you are insane and utterly certain of your beliefs you will acquire a following of otherwise sane followers. People are attracted to certainty even more than sanity.

The places of quiet are going away, the churches, the woods, the libraries. And it is only in silence we can hear the voice inside of us which gives us true peace.

Our era is one where we have truly discovered our freedom and it scares us to death.

Forget scientists. The next space launch we should send up painters, poets and musicians. I’d be more interested in what they discover than anything that takes place in a test tube.

Honest men discuss morals, dishonest ones, law.

Here is the paradox of it: the more of an individual you become the more you realize we are interrelated, that success of one requires the success of all.

People toy with deep thought nowadays, but they need to add humor so they can dance away from it when it gets too deep. When a line of reasoning becomes uncomfortable, a quick joke can take us out of it without ever worrying about the consequences.

All the science in the world is powerless against the force of willful ignorance. When facing it, it is best to employ other tools.

There is nothing special about me except that I have within me the same potential all humans have. To achieve that potential, to come even remotely close, is special indeed.

The mind can no more understand the heart than science can ever understand nature.

Whether you believe in God or not, it is folly to argue with him.

If you are looking for a way, earnestly looking, you will find it, and it will likely be found behind a stack of excuses.

Above the entrance to the free market is a sign that reads: “Abandon all morality, ye who enter.”

Time and age often lend a veneer of dignity even to those who don’t deserve it.

Cleverness is the death of wisdom.

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.

Random Thoughts Part 7

Yet another group of ideas that have sprung to mind in the last week or so:

Facts, like living things, have a value in and of themselves and demand respect. Beware those people who use them as means to an end and dismiss them as soon as they are done using them.

They say it is not the destination but the journey. And yet we struggle through traffic to wait in lines at the airport, only to go through demeaning searches and then be shoved into undersized seats. We have compromised too much, and so are unable to enjoy what it is we get.

This is the sum total of the knowledge I have obtained in my thirty years of work experience: The ranting of an idiot, overheard by an intern and reported to his superior, will always spell trouble for the honest worker.

Only the very stupid are ever certain of anything.

Most animals sleep in a hole in the ground or hanging from a tree. Man alone has made for himself an elaborate resting place. And yet he is the only one to have developed the alarm clock to rouse himself from it, the only species to spend sixteen or more hours of each day away from it.

In the same way that youth is wasted on the young, retirement is wasted on the old. We should not grow old but young, to gradually increase into a naïve idealism rather than calcify into cynicism and disillusionment, to end our lives in the womb rather than the tomb. Our eyesight slowly growing keener, our skin becoming more sensitive, our appetite increasing as we rush to feel experience, keen in the knowledge that we truly must seize the day.

The world belongs to those with a single idea who are able to repeat it unendingly. You may charitably call them single-minded, but they are in truth simple minded.

Where does alienation most manifest itself in our society? Whenever science, government, or business develops a really bad idea and we just shrug and say: “That is progress. It is unavoidable.”

Man has always sought to be a part of something larger and so has tried to change himself in order to fit that larger thing. What he seldom realizes is that he is a part of all that is merely by being uncompromisingly himself.

It takes a brave man to go to war, but it takes a nation of cowards to send him.

We tend to want to remake the world in our own image which why it is best to seek our own happiness. The best gift we can give others is to be happy.

The big events of our youth have profound influences on the rest of our lives. Similarly, the earliest events of our history (e.g. Troy or the American Revolution) play a major role in our society.

We build elaborate theories on a single narrow idea, like a pyramid balanced on a tin can.

In a sick society, no institution is untouched. No psychiatrist can diagnose the disease without being disbarred, no politician can point to the truth without being shouted down or gunned down. The poet, musician, filmmaker, or artist who attempts to define the problem will be ignored, without a source of income to have his work reach the masses.

Random Thoughts Part 5

Like many others of this age, I am still capable of thinking in short sprints. Unfortunately, like others of this age, I have too many distractions to actually think for any extended duration. By the way, have you noticed that we live in an age of distractions and that distractions are never good? Nobody is ever in the middle of playing a video game only to get distracted by War And Peace or The Symposium,  are they? At any rate, here are some thoughts, if you have time for such things:

It is foolish to argue with God if you believe in him, more so if you do not.

I do not listen so much to whether or not you invoke God or science so much as if you have a degree of humility in your voice.

Intelligence is merely a tolerance for ambiguity and a reticence for judgment. Both of these can be acquired through practice.

If you want to make a person feel helpless, convince him he is a victim. If you want to make him dangerous, tell him he belongs to a group that is victimized.

There is no such thing as a good law, only a necessary one. Laws are the tombstones of ethics.

Over-tolerance has at its roots the same causes as intolerance: the unwillingness to make complex moral decisions. One provides a simple answer which says everything is permitted. The other establishes a black and white view of the world that does not allow for intricacies.

To the creationist, the extinction of a species must be the gravest of crimes.

Can one have pride without accomplishments? Faith without acts? Confidence without hard work?

A starving man will eat rice intermixed with dirt rather than trying to sort out each little grain. The hungry man will work a little way towards purifying his intake. The gourmand will insist upon purity. Such it is with art.

Never mistake democracy for America, liberty for a flag. Do not confuse abstract ideas with reality.

It is naïve to think big government can solve all our problems, foolish to believe the free market can.

I don’t care about your political persuasion so much as your commitment to facts.

Society needs a moral authority, be it the church, the government, etc. Today, the moral authority is the market, which preaches that whatever is profitable is good.

When I was growing up in the 70's we didn't have things like Facebook and Texting. If you wanted to send a message back then you had to knock on ceilings or pipes or tie ribbons to trees.

I find it absolutely disgusting that they're finding plastics in our great lakes' water. From now on I'm drinking only bottled water.

We smugly act like we are superior to kids today, but guess what? This is the world our generation has created. We were too busy pursuing material goods to share our time with them, instead giving them electronic devices to amuse them so that we wouldn't be distracted from the game or soap opera we were watching on TV.

Isn't blaming government for the abuses it sometimes enables kind of the same thing as blaming guns for the uses criminals put them to?

Our Founding Fathers established a government that was very limited in its reach and its ability to tax. It was called The Articles Of Confederation and it didn't work.

Speaking the truth means being hated and misunderstood by both sides of the issue.

Creationists: living proof that the theory of evolution is wrong.

It’s perfectly acceptable to mock the past for its absurdities so long as it does not permit you to turn a blind eye to the foolishness of the present.

  

The difference between Western hillbilly hatemongers and Islamic extremists is actually pretty thin. Both like to marry girls before they are old enough to make decisions of their own, both like to feel morally superior despite being intellectually inferior, and both justify violence in the name of God.

  

Certainty is an illusion, but it is a pleasant one. And illusions that work are more practical than realism that doesn’t Cherish your illusions, for they are the efficacious agents of their own achievement.

The present is the balance between yesterday and tomorrow. He who is not on equal footing, cannot live adequately in the present.

There are only two things one need be concerned with: the real and the possible.

Random Thoughts

I have a lot of time to think at work, but not enough time for me to actually link thoughts together. This results in me writing a lot of things down on scrap paper, which I take home. I accumulate piles of these rather quickly. Since it will take a long time to get all of these ideas organized, I thought I’d just share the random things I have in my most recent pile:

Before Ayn Rand coined the term “objectivists”, we just called them “selfish assholes”.

An economy based on debt is an economy of slavery.

I realize the reptilian part of your brain is always going to react to base sexuality, but why is it your more advanced brain functions go along with it?

Just as the first step to sobriety begins with admitting you are a drunk, the first step towards wisdom is admitting you are a moron. And like an alcoholic, you must never believe that you are cured.

If God is looking out for you, why do you need a gun?

If you’re not constantly looking at things from at least two viewpoints, you have no sense of perspective.

If you sell your integrity for the sake of winning a single battle, you have lost the war.

Work hard and don’t care about others. If I wanted a society of slaves, that is what I’d teach them. Oh, and support your military and law enforcement uncritically.

Suffering because others suffer is not the answer to suffering.

We have abandoned our responsibilities as human beings to technology and market forces.

We teach self-reliance on a personal level while we as a nation are becoming ever more reliant on other nations.

The statues of great men have always been the preferred targets for the droppings of pigeons.

You never feel like you are standing on the crest of a wave. One always imagines the wave to be larger than it is, that the upward trend has only just begun.

A truth told once is no match for a lie oft repeated.

It was such a long journey to get to where I am. It was a battle all the way, but the only foe that was ever capable of inflicting pain, my greatest impedance, was doubt.

I have no great hopes left for my country. I fully expect to wake up one day to find my fellow Americans have voted the Evil Monkey Party into office.

Imagine what we as a nation could accomplish if we worked on what we agreed on instead of arguing about what we do not.

Words are sacred because they are the vessels on which imagination sails.

Rare is the person who is looking for anything more than to have his prejudices confirmed.

Love the person you are. And if you do not, cannot love yourself, believe that you have the ability to change.

If you have a nice enough desk, sooner or later you’ll start to feel you’re important.

Republicans and Democrats are going to act like spoiled children warring in the back seat until we the voters decide to turn the car around.

You sometimes wonder how the flowers are able to grow amongst the weeds. But flowers are the natural consequence of a healthy environment.

God is not a God to fall back on but to reach towards.