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 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 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.