Quotes On Awakening

 

Artwork in progress for Essays On Awakening

Some quotes from my forthcoming book, Essays On Awakening:

Any choice you opt for, any candidate you vote for, that is offered by the system, is opting for and supportive of the system. Any corporate product you buy or political candidate you invest your energy in is profiting the corporate system. There is no way within the system to fight the system. That’s not an option they are going to give you. Prison guards don’t give weapons to the prisoners they profit from controlling.

This may sound very discouraging, as if there is no way out of the dilemma. And when we feel discouraged, when we feel there is no real way to improve things, we shut down, stop trying, ignore the problem because we feel as if we can do nothing to fix it. This isn’t the case at all, but it is what the existing system wants you to think. They want you to think that there is no hope and there are no solutions. And that is true, but only when you look to the system for answers. The system will only give you answers that support the system, therefore they will only give you lies that will ultimately leave you feeling hopeless. That’s where you are now whether you are fully aware of it or not. You have been beaten down and made to feel that you can only hope for the crumbs that they throw you.

If you cannot say no and you always come up with reasons for supporting those who rule you in ways you should not be ruled, you are a slave. And good for you if you want to be a slave, that’s your choice. But for God’s sake, don’t try to lecture the rest of us. If we do not listen to your master, we are not going to listen to his lackeys. Go live your slave lives but don’t go preaching to us.

So how do you know when you are effectively opposing a system that is created to oppress rather than encourage individual rights? When the system tells you you are wrong. When they try to silence you, when they tell you you are not merely wrong but dangerous. You ARE dangerous. Dangerous to THEM. Dangerous to the power they have usurped from the masses. You are dangerous to unjust power. And when you are dangerous to unjust power, that means you are powerful to oppose injustice. And that’s a good thing.

The courage that permits wisdom demands you relinquish all of your biases, which act as defenses. You must abandon not only self but your larger affiliations, which, after all, are merely larger sorts of self. You must attempt to see reality through God’s eyes. And in doing so, you must not limit God to what you believe Him to be or what your larger group tells you God is. Again, you must see through the eyes of others. You must attempt to see God through the eyes of those who call him Allah, must see him through the eyes of those who call him Vishnu, those who do not call him by any name and yet seek him though they know it not.

Seek the wisdom of the young, who see life through unbiased eyes. Seek the wisdom of the old, who at last have seen through the many stages of life. Though their eyes be weak, their vision blurry, their knowledge of what to look for is unsurpassed.

The greatest courage we can attain is to step out of our own little shells, to leave self and ego behind and float, selfless and vulnerable, through all the life we encounter. In leaving our home, we find everywhere to be home. In leaving ourselves, we find everybody and everything to be us.

Once wisdom is attained, courage is no longer required.

Do not fear that you will never be free from their machinations. They will always be ahead of you in the games they play, but all their plotting will come to nothing if you keep to the basic principles you know in your heart to be true. They cannot manipulate you if they cannot make you stray from your core values.

Do not hate, even when you do not understand. Do not support violence, even when you are afraid for yourself and your family. Hatred and violence are their tools, not ours. Hatred and violence make tyrants strong but they are the ruin of civilizations.

Have faith, in yourself and in the overall goodness of humanity. Perhaps people are not naturally angels, but neither are they naturally devils. The deciding factor is the way we choose to perceive ourselves and others. If you commit to seeing the better angels of your own soul and of those you meet, you will turn the tide in favor of goodness.

Primitive man realized he was part of a family as much as he was an individual. Advancing, he realized he was part of something larger, part of a clan. Then still something larger, a tribe, a city, a nation. The history of humanity is one of searching for belonging in an ever-bigger community. We have now arrived at the logical endpoint, the realization that we are all one people, a global family, each of us depending upon others for our own survival.

P.S. Essays On Awakening will be a sort of sequel to my book Essays On The Media, which is available HERE

Random Thoughts Part 23

Every one of these is a potential essay. Mention one you want me to write about and it shall be done:

How can one who truly loves life not have moments of intense sadness? How can one love the myriad people, places, and situations we encounter without grieving their impermanence?

I cry for the young because they will one day grow old. I cry for the old because they were once children. I weep for myself because I am not the one but will be the other.

I am even more hungry for life now than when I was young, but it seems I am only able to take small bites.

What makes fiction literature? It must speak to the times and yet be timeless. It need not be trendy or cutting edge, in fact it seldom is. Truth is seldom fashionable.

We have created a world we don’t like, don’t understand and don’t trust, and we are too frightened to try to change it.

If God rewards the faithful with earthly rewards, then what leverage does the devil have?

If food did not go bad, gold would be next to worthless. Gold is man’s vain attempt at security, at keeping for tomorrow what we have today..

What I don’t like about Christians is when they are self-righteous and sanctimonious, demanding all others fall in line with their belief system. Now if I don’t like such traits in Christians, why do you think I’d tolerate them any better coming from other groups? 

Humans were meant to meander, to roam and to graze. We were meant to sit beneath the stars, to gather around a fire with family and friends.

Do I make a break for the island I see in the distance, or do I cling to whatever wreckage I happen upon and let the tide take me where it will?

I have decided to make a go of it at writing, to do whatever it takes to become successful at it. And after audaciously announcing this, I asked myself, as I always do, “Anything? Would you sell your very soul to be a writer?” And a voice within me answered “Writing is my soul.”

If we do not work for peace, struggle for peace, if we do not keep peace always in our hearts, our minds, and on our lips, we will never achieve peace. Peace is a choice, it is a commitment, a lifestyle. It will never happen accidently, or as a result of pursuing other aims. Peace is a religion, or at least it is at the heart of all religions.

If you want a language to survive, capture great thoughts within it. William Shakespeare has ensured Elizabethan English will never perish from this world.

When arrogance takes the place of facts and logic in an argument, intimidation and violence will not be far behind.

One of the worst sins you can commit is to create explanations for something you know in your heart is not true.

They are not my enemy, whoever “they” happens to be.

I fear absolutism, simplistic solutions, and fundamentalism, just as I would fear trying to sit on a one-legged chair.

Only through spirituality can we be in touch with the all. Anything else is to be a part of something less. Anything else is to be part of a faction at war with another.

The cunning will always be able to outthink even the wise, it is what they spend their lives at. They live within their plans, creating schemes to confuse the straight and obvious paths of others. The only way to prevent ourselves from being led astray is to never put aside our core values even when confronted with the most compelling of evidence. Never must we act in fear or in hatred. Never must we allow ourselves to be convinced that it is okay to kill or to steal. Never should we believe that cruelty is the only path, deserting kindness.

The mark of a civilized man is not that he does not think of baser things but that he is quite often capable of rising above such matters.

Evil is the word used by the ignorant to explain the motivation of those with whom they disagree or do not understand.

If there is divinity within us, it is hewn from our baser clay by words and ideas.

The law of supply and demand, which states that the greater supply the cheaper the cost, does not apply to ignorance. The greater the amount of ignorance people have, the more they value ignorance in their art, politics, and their fellow man.

Random Thoughts Part 22

Perhaps it is not so much the pointing of guns but the pointing of fingers that is most to blame for many of the tragedies in the world today. After all, where the finger points, the gun inevitably follows.

I do not fear guns so much as I fear weak arguments. I have never been threatened by a gun but am assailed by weak arguments on a daily basis. Strong arguments stand on their own, guns cannot operate on their own. But weak arguments require guns in order to prop them up.

If you are unable to understand why other people can be so damned stupid, then you yourself have room for improvement.

It is impossible for both sides in a war to be right, but it is quite likely for them both to be wrong.

People are scrambling to find something safe they can hold onto, and they have chosen gold as the safest investment. As for me, I choose faith in my fellow man, in humanity.

To work within the system is to support the system.

You may never live long enough to discover who you are, but by the time you reach middle age you will hopefully realize who you are not.

People who wish to control your behavior give you only one option. People who wish to control your thoughts give you two choices and the illusion of choice. However many choices you are given, if you do not feel that you are in control, you must find one more.

When we have pushed our intellectual pursuits to their furthest, we find ourselves ultimately lacking in our ability to finish the quest. The human mind, regardless of whether that person is a genius or simpleton, sooner or later must hit this point. It is then that we find we have nothing to rely on except our core values.

Sometimes not having a choice is the most liberating feeling of all.

I can’t wait for the day when computers take over the jobs of computer programmers.

Hope. A hundred years ago the poor worked their lives away in the slim hope that they might become part of the 1%. For those who realized it was an impossible dream, still they worked for those same 1% in the hopes that their efforts would entitle them to a reward in the afterlife. But the religion that exists now gives humanity a different sort of hope. Now the workers are taught that if we all do our part, we can perpetuate the human species by advancing our technology enough that we can enable our 1% to travel to some other planet capable of sustaining life before we have destroyed the one we were given.

If you value a flag more than the values it symbolizes, you are no different than those who worship statues rather than the god they represent.

Abandon the systems that seek to rule you. Seriously, walk away from them, give them no more of your attention. Turn off corporate television. Avoid corporate media. Do your best to avoid eating corporate crops, drinking corporate beer, or reading books published by the big publishing companies.

I cannot change people. Even the greatest of artists cannot hope to do so. But perhaps I can get them to stretch a little, grow so that they are larger than they were, their reach a little further than it was, so that they are able to connect with others more than they otherwise might have.

How can we find stupid to be amusing when it is exercised by dogs but so frustrating when humans exhibited the same stupidity?

Art is the medium through which new thoughts, perspectives, and attitudes are brought into the world.

I grew up in the 70’s, an era where the media—books, comics, television shows, movies—had a great amount of sympathetic villains. The generation that followed not only had unlikeable villains, even the heroes were little better.

Nothing would be so informative or contrary to nationalism as reading the history books of other nations.

Countless people have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve incredible success through visualization, positivity, and unwavering belief in their dream. It is time for us now to work together using these principles to advance shared goals. We must envision a healthy, working, happy, viable future and we must not allow any negativity to prevent us from achieving it.

Never place a flag ahead of the ideas it is supposed to represent, nor put ideas before the people they are supposed to serve.

There are so many ways of looking at the world that you have never considered. Don’t look negatively at those who have views different from your own, especially if they are willing to consider your point of view.

You have no idea how many people will reach out to you once you leave yourself open to them.

Let us constantly ignore the things that divide us and rather optimistically reach out in terms of the things that our important to ourselves.

Core values tell us not to kill. Cleverness provides us with exceptions. The more clever we become, the less principled we are.

My greatest fear is that we will permit our worst human attributes to play themselves out with the assistance of our greatest technological achievements.

I am on the side of those without weapons facing those who are armed, I am on the side of those without against those who have, and I am on the side of those who obey what their heart tells them over those who do what authority tells them.

The further you set your sights, the less turbulent the way will seem.

God saves a lot of people from self-destructive behavior and I’m glad for that. I just wish He could save them from being self-righteous assholes as well.

Random Thoughts Part 20

All novels and schools of thought begin with a single small seed of an idea. Here are some seeds from which someday mighty books might spring. Or not.

The pain of existence is the pain of a piece of a puzzle that does not know where it fits.

Inside every cynical person there is a weakling who was looking for an opportunity to quit believing.

We have stopped using the word citizen and replaced it with consumer, and I find that very sad.

We see not only with our eyes but also with our heart, so all that we perceive is colored by our hatred and our love.

No matter how we try, we can never return to the past. But the irony of it is that if we try and run away from the past, it always catches up to us.

If someone exposes himself to your child, that person is arrested. If a person exposes himself to your child through the media, that is called freedom of speech and we blame the parents for not being responsible.

Belief means holding on to an idea, faith means letting go.

There are in hell pits so deep that no matter what you throw into them, they shall never be filled. They are not there as instruments of torture for the wicked, they are those who suffer in hell of their own free will. They are called cynics.

When you are witness to genius, it is not your job to accept or reject what is stated but to incorporate it into your own philosophy.

Intelligence is overrated. Two dogs who sniff each others’ butts learn more about each other in a moment than many humans understand about those they’ve known for a lifetime.

If we do not realize the spirituality that underlies politics we will never find political solutions. All answers we come up with will be simplistic, incomplete, and eventually harmful.

If The Bible was meant to be taken literally, there would only be one Gospel, not four, would only be one creation story, not two. Jesus lived and people wrote stories about him. The Bible is a collection of stories. Letting go of simplistic answers might just plunge you into a realm of belief and faith far beyond anything you believed was possible. But first you must let go. That, my friend, is the first step, it is perhaps the single greatest act of faith you’ll ever take.

The fact that we as humans do not have eyes in the back of our heads goes to show that we as a species were designed to look after each other.

The fool attempts to predict the next big wave while ignoring the tide.

If you get your news, movies, and music for free, what you will get is merely propaganda and advertising.

You cannot use vulgarity without turning thought from the abstract to the concrete, from the sublime to the mundane, from the intelligent to the silly. Vulgar words cheapen. Sometimes the words can communicate intense passion, but it is not the enduring kind of passion but that which passes in the use of the word. Dropping of such words are akin to having a bowel movement. Once released one has no desire to stay in the same room as it.

KFC took the fried and Super Sugar Crisps took the sugar not out of their product but out of their marketing. That is how a consumer society deals with dangers to your health.

Humans are happiest with a simple life and advertisers are happiest when they are able to make you buy more by making you insecure and unhappy.

The more you shape the world the more you become responsible for it.

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 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 14

In making the decision to reflect rather than react I have come up with my daily dose of observations.

I don’t believe in destiny, but I do believe that those who do are capable of achieving things others would believe impossible.

Every moment of the day we are given the opportunity to think, to give birth to some new idea or perspective. How often when offered such an opportunity do we merely react?

It is better to have evidence without answers than to have answers without evidence.

Too much analysis always reveals imperfection. Any potential love interest will fall from angel to animal with enough scrutiny. Magic is killed by demanding too much proof.

Our primary motivator is not inspiration, a quest for happiness, morality, or a sense of purpose. It is habit that most determines our behavior.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

Technology is becoming ever more marvelous, but what good does it do if it does not serve humanity?

What if the imbalance of the individual is necessary to the balance of society? What if making the individual “normal” through medication is making society as a whole abnormal?

Never trust those who talk philosophy when facts and science are readily available.

A country content to be directed by the free market will soon see Shakespeare and Plato replaced by the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo.

God is love, yes, but what if love is God? Does it require any less faith?

Those in the earnest pursuit of the truth are too busy in that pursuit to have time to refute every lie.

A rising tide lifts all boats, but it drowns those without one.

We live in a world we’ve created and yet do not understand.

I saw a starving child yesterday. The temptation was strong to help him, but I resisted. Instead, I told him to close his eyes and believe in the magic of the marketplace.

If you want to ensure that you have an accurate measurement, be sure to use more than one measuring device.

No society arises without religion and spirituality because you cannot use doubt as a base.

There is no such thing as a purely economic transaction. All transactions involve human beings with human considerations.

Truth is not the sort of thing you can draw a circle around and claim you have defined.

It is the easiest thing in the world to judge someone. It does not require understanding them, in fact judging them is an easy way of avoiding having to understand.

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 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 6

Sometimes I feel truly alive and thoughts come to me and I see the beauty that exists in the world. Then I am reminded that I am at work and it is in my job description to squash such feelings. Here are some thoughts I managed to scribble down and sneak out of the corporation that owns me 8 hours a day:

Too often we submit to the herd instinct rather than tap into the group intelligence.

Have you ever found yourself cursing at an inanimate object, a wrench or tool that slipped and smashed your fingers? Of course you have, it happens all the time. How many times do we blame people equally as innocent? The dice are against me. The world is against me. In truth, the world is likely as indifferent to you as a pair of dice.

Even our sense of smell is better equipped to judge the outside world than our intellect, but the intellect is better at convincing us it is right. Think about it, if something does not seem right but our mind cannot find a reason against it, we say that “something smells rotten” or “it doesn’t pass the smell test. For one day, abandon reason for scent and see if it does not make you happier.

Simplistic ideas are the weapons with which the thoughtful are clubbed.

I often hear people ponder about humankind, what is so unique about us that we have come to dominate the planet over all God’s other creatures. What vanity. It is like Babylon pondering what made their civilization superior to all others, or a child contemplating how he got to be king of the hill. It is a thing of the moment.

When we abandon our gods, we cease to be human.

The gulf between liberals and conservatives is not as vast as the gulf between the people and their leaders. But our leaders do everything in their power to keep us focused on the former rather than the latter.

The essential knowledge of the virtues civilization needs is embedded in the great religions. I cannot think of another institution they inhabit.

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

We used to base our hopes in the idea that tomorrow would be the same as today. Now our hope lies in a future radically transformed from what we have. We have switched from relying on the natural world to relying on technology. We base our hopes on our ability to game the system.

Sometimes you cannot trust the goodness in another until you can see it in yourself.

There are books that contain within them more life than many who draw breath, ideas and words that are worth living for and dying for.

The problem is not that the right path is seldom known, it is that it appears to be the more imposing path to take. But in reality, while it starts out through brambles and rough road, it is in the end the straighter one.

Art helps you connect to the world, not escape from it. That is the difference between art and entertainment.

We live in a world of distractions, and distractions--by definition--are never important. Nobody has ever been distracted from a video game by a novel or a philosophical treatise.

They call them living rooms but they are not, they are shrines to television. In them, no living occurs, merely passive viewing.

Though there are advantages to it, never allow yourself to become too practical. It is a short step from practical to cynical.

My doctor just diagnosed me with attention deficit oh, look, a clicky pen.

All religions have begun as a movement to counteract previous religions.

Christianity was founded on faith, hope, and love, not on a book.

People are always being forced into choosing either A or B. Just remember that there’s always at least a third option. That is what makes humans better than computers.

The larger world is mostly built by little men with little minds who have little idea of what it is they have helped form.

A society that spends its wealth on machines that can read genes cares no more about morality than one that spends its wealth on churches cares about science.

The movies and books I enjoyed as a child usually had villains that were sympathetic and were simply good people twisted by misfortune. Now it seems rare to find a story where even the hero is very sympathetic.

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.

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.