Random Thoughts Part 17

It's been almost a month since I've done one of these:

Gratitude is not something we should feel burdened by, rather it is a reward to be attained. Gratitude is the sweetness we experience when we achieve true happiness, it is the realization of how much we have been given.

The second greatest crime we can commit in this life is to be something other than ourselves. The greatest crime is to not allow someone else to be who he or she was meant to be. To force someone to become something artificial, through fear or shame, is to take from them not only what belongs to them but a piece of their soul.

Politics should be dealt with between people and should leave politicians out of the discussion.

Good ideas survive violence, bad ideas require it.

I’m not saying I have all the answers, I’m simply saying I have a deeper level of misunderstanding than you.

The society that sacrifices virgins to the volcano god would see the absurdities of our culture more clearly than us.

Choosing a side is like closing one eye. It means that you cease to take in any information from one source and only accept that which is perceived by the other.

Don’t listen to those who say they have answers, listen to those who ask questions.

The problem with humans is we are clever enough to talk ourselves out of what our hearts know. No animal, unless treated cruelly, is capable of disbelieving in love or loyalty.

I am disappointed in the-man-I-was-yesterday, wildly optimistic about what the-man-I-will-be-tomorrow will accomplish, and very sympathetic to the-man-I-am-now’s need for a rest.

We spend the first part of our lives trying to convince others we are more grown up than we are and the second part trying to tell ourselves we are not as old as we are.

If we turn everything into a competition, such as we do with cooking contests, American Idol, etc., then we turn everything into pleasing authority, for there must always be authorities who judge.

I hold forth the hope that a day will soon come when we once again prize ideas over attitude, a day when we think brave thoughts, dare our own paths. Once again, the individual will think for himself and in that moment we will all be amazed that we more or less agree.

Technology will never solve man’s moral problems, it will only complicate them.

The ability to wield the tools technology has brought into being requires not greatness but humility.

Your inner voice is always there, willing to tell you what it is that will bring you the happiness you want. You merely have to turn everything else off and be a little patient.

Imagine a world where man’s moral evolution has caught up to his technological achievements.

Hell is merely a Purgatory we’ve resigned ourselves to, accepted. Hell is what we experience when we have given up hope.

Some people have a less inclusive sense of “we” than others.

Those who complain most loudly about unjust laws are most likely the once who induced society to write them in the first place.

You will never go broke underestimating the general public, but you will become morally bankrupt, which is much worse.

Random Thoughts Part 16

The greatest artistic talent of our day is busy constructing packaging rather than art.

Brave men need people looking after them, people to say enough, no more. This holds true for boxers as well as soldiers. Don't send people to get hurt when they have nothing to gain from it. Don't let others profit from the bravery of others.

Morality is really no different on a societal scale than for individuals. I do what I feel to be moral and right because I truly believe it will benefit me and in some small way the world. It's not so much about making rules for others to follow so much as setting an example that others will want to follow.

Hate doesn’t need a reason, just an excuse.

All countries memorialize the dates when they were wronged, but never do they recall the wrongs they have done. Looked at from the inside, each nation is blameless.

We can judge without understanding, but if we are able to truly understand, we will not be able to judge.

We can disagree on 95% of the problems facing the world, but if we are able to work together on the 5% we agree on, we can make the world a better place.

Weak arguments hide behind strong emotions.

Many seek the path of judgment rather than the path of understanding. But how do you judge what you do not understand? And understanding, how can one then judge?

We all have a role to play and it is nobody’s role to despair. It would be a poorly written play if there was, a group of characters sitting around awaiting an inevitable end. Nor is it your role to fault your fellow performers, to tell them their actions are wrong. Play your role as it is written in your heart and let the written words come to life.

Arrogance passes as intelligence to the ignorant.

The problem with a philosophy or a belief is that you soon start changing the facts to fit it.

Wisdom that does not lead to contentment is not wisdom. It is better to be a happy fool than a miserable wise man.

Our society needs more grandmothers and less facelifts, more grandfathers and less ED pills.

A philosophy becomes a religion the moment you replace questioning with belief, when you forget that is but one way among many to see the world.

Difficult questions, even if never fully answered, are still more useful than simple answers.

Walls are Illusions, illusions are walls. There are no borders that are not artificial, no “over there”, no place called “away” where we can throw something. We cannot wall ourselves off, at least not for long. There is no hiding place. We cannot lock something away without it festering in the darkness. There is no there and them, there is only here and us.

The more you have the less you have need of your fellow man and the more you begin to fear them.

The more you see differences, the more you see the need for walls, bars, and guns.

Our society currently respects profit more than work, which means that it gives a higher regard to those who take rather than give.

Christian, Jew, Liberal, or Conservative. If you are a halfway thoughtful person you will inevitably end up being embarrassed by whatever group you identify with.

Assuredly science is superior to religion in understanding the physical universe. But maybe, just maybe, religion is better at seeing our position in relation to that universe.

You were born to solve the problems you confront, not complain that nobody is doing anything about them. If you see and feel a problem so acutely, who better than yourself to solve it?

Dinosaurs had brains the size of marbles but even they weren’t dumb enough to cause their own extinction.

It is dangerous to ignore facts, just as it is dangerous to become too enamored with them.

The job of keeping you informed and enlightened will never pay as well as the job of keeping you misinformed and frightened.

Perhaps the one unanswerable question in life is why so many of us choose to live in a fantasy world of our own creation that offers us nothing but pain.

Random Thoughts Part 15

I've re-read these and still think they were thoughts worth thinking:

When you are at a loss for what to do, remember that the answer is to love, not hate, to have faith rather than fear. Always. Because love grows from love, hate from hate. Faith like fear radiates out into the world. Faith makes the world a safer place for us, though it does not always seem to be the case. Sometimes hate seems to be the safer course, but that is merely fear talking.

There are two ways people choose to look at humanity. The first is to subject humans to the worst possible conditions and respond to how they act by saying, “this is what humans are like beneath the veneer of civilization.” The second is to encourage people, forgive them when they have erred, and say “this is what we are capable of.”

You cannot effect positive change with negative thoughts and emotions.

Peaceful protest requires more courage than going to war. In war you can abandon yourself to primitive impulses, to the kill-or-be-killed mentality. The peaceful protester must face violence fully aware, must experience it with all the sensitivity civilization has imparted.

Once upon a time there was a law beyond the market, but no more. Once religion or love of king and country were foremost in a person’s mind, but now there is only profit.

The intellect is a boat which can take us to the very shores of understanding, but once there we must leave it behind in order to grasp true meaning.

To entertain a child is to open his eyes to a larger universe, to present new possibilities to him. But to entertain an adult is to distract him from that larger universe. An adult does not need to be entertained, he can truly experience life rather than have it explained.

We are too busy reacting to reflect. Leisure is our greatest treasure, and we have lost the ability to appreciate it.

You are not the man you were five years ago, you are the man he made.

A story is merely a vessel for something more important.

It is not whether you win or lose, it is the game you choose to play that matters most.

Never argue philosophy when facts are available—unless the facts are against you.

The longer one remains a fool, the harsher the lesson learned.

Technological progress will never compensate for our moral and spiritual shortcomings. In fact, in the final analysis, it will make matters even worse, will place powerful new tools in the hands of our lesser angels.

Life has not changed even slightly since the time it first appeared on the earth, merely the packaging, the bodies it wraps itself in.

Our greatest minds used to pursue beauty and truth, now they pursue marketing and amusement. There is no one looking out for us.

Perhaps big brother has not yet arrived, but we have left the door wide open for him, and set out the welcome mat.

The intellect does not enable one to experience the divine, but it can help spot the false prophet.

See it as it is, not how it fits into your life story. As you grow towards adulthood and begin to have an understanding of life, the pieces that do not fit the narrative you have written tend to fall to the wayside. So much we perceived in childhood is forgotten because it is inconvenient.

The more we are conscious of being observed the less we act according to our own motivations and act in reaction to those we believe are watching us. Who at work feels they are doing their best when they have the eyes of their supervisor on them? And when are we ever left to ourselves nowadays? When does someone have the opportunity to truly be an individual, the best person he can be? When do we write down our thoughts for ourselves rather than for an audience, when do we care more about what something means than how it is perceived?

We are caught between Eden and the Promised Land, believing there was once or ever will be a resting point.

No child believes he will look like his parents when he grows up. It is an idea too horrible for a young mind to contemplate.

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 2

It is easier for me to think up 1,000 ideas for a blog post than actually write a single blog, so here are some ideas worthy of a post that still work well on their own: 

Nothing is so much a barrier to success as a handy excuse.

It is wisdom to know who you are, but not to the point of excluding who you might become.

What kind of world are we living in that a corporation is given the rights of a person but not an unborn child?

  

Never in mankind’s history have we so fundamentally changed our means of existence with so little thought.

No society has ever been destroyed by giving too much to its poor.

What man, if his son asked him for a fish, would give him poison? Besides a Frenchman.

A memorial should be built to all of those who died in wars that were fought for false reasons.

Look at the physical if you will not look at the spiritual. Our stores offer a bounty of health foods, fresh produce from around the world, yet we eat junk food, we get fat. We have wealth without contentment. So too we have a glut of information available at our fingertips, yet we get stupid.

Feminism is not inherently bourgeois, but bourgeois feminism is the only one given voice in our society. That is why women’s issues discuss glass ceilings rather than dirt floors.

What kind of hell must one be living in in order to risk prison?

Our country is the only one that truly permits you to speak bad of your country, so you really shouldn’t say anything bad about it.

Good enough may be an acceptable end, but it should never be an acceptable goal.

Is love a state of being we aspire to or the action required to attain that state?

An individual may on occasion escape the consequences of his actions (karma), though seldom. A society, never. A culture, by ignoring its prophets, seals its fate.

We look for things or people that are incorruptible. There is nothing incorruptible, merely uncorrupted. We neglect the role we play. We value innocence, but only the kind we cannot alter. We throw mud at purity and mock it for its stain.

TV pollutes our minds and dulls our senses. It is a babysitter that molests children. And yet those who are on the television scream “first amendment” and “freedom of speech”. How is corporate control freedom of speech? And what rights did our forefathers grant corporations, anyway?

Perhaps the media may not always be telling you what to think, but it is always telling you what to think about.

We have to believe in free will, we have no other choice.

Vulgarity ruins a good conversation. One does not eat a fine meal in an outhouse.

When I was young and thought of all the things I was not, it felt like freedom. Now I think of the things I am not nor will ever be and it feels like failure.

How will children grow to become individuals when they are no longer ever alone but always attached to the group mind via the internet? And how will society avoid group think when we are always in a crowd?

It doesn’t have to be your fault to be your problem.

You are more likely to care about the woman whose child is sick from hunger if its cries keep you up all night.

Such is the world we live in that calling someone an animal is an insult, while calling them a machine is a compliment.

Toys have typically been miniature versions of tools adults use. What can be said then of Grand Theft Auto?

The past will contend with us, the future remember us. We stand in the here and now, staking our claim on eternity.

Whoever dies with the most toys, dies a child.

Each man is an island unto himself. But though a sea of difference may divide us, an entire world of commonality lies beneath.

When we can no longer find something to believe in, we must become something to believe in. That is what it means to be an adult.

It’s hard to see the big picture when your eyes are always on the bottom line.

Ego warps truth in the same way that planets and stars warp space and time.

There is no greater thing than to be oneself, and it is never too late to do so.

I tried getting high on life but I couldn’t handle the side effects.

Sheep only need a single flock, but people need two: one to belong to and to make them feel comfortable, and one to blame all of society’s problems on.