Quote of the Day -- On Age, Selfishness and Love

"...as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was 'mostly Love, now.'” 

--George Saunders, from his presentation, "Advice to Graduates", 2013

Quote of the Day -- On Life, Living and Learning

Quote of the day from Herman Hesse, born this day, 1877.

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

― Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

A Letter To Santa From Trump's America (guest post)

I saw this yesterday and thought it very true and pretty darned complete.

A letter to Santa from Trump's America

Dear Santa,

We've been naughty. We elected a woman-degrading, racist-appeasing, megalomaniac to be President of the United States. There are many reasons this happened some understandable, some vile. I wouldn't blame you for removing the United States from your Christmas Eve flight plan altogether this year, but just in case you decide we are worthy of a few gifts I'm sending you a Christmas list because there are a few things we really need:

• the wisdom to rediscover those truths that once seemed self-evident but have proven not to be: that we are all equal and deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
• the courage to stand up for people who are mistreated because of their race, religion, gender, sexual-orientation, or country of origin;
• the confidence to stand up for ourselves when others wrong us;
• the foresight to nurture the foundations of our children's futures: education, the environment, and empathy;
• the strength to speak out against tyranny;
• the insight to discern fact from fiction;
• the self-awareness to admit what we do not know;
• the curiosity to never stop learning;
• the passion to make art or support those who do;
• the freedom to speak and write what is on our minds, including the freedom to rebut the statements of others no matter how powerful they may be;
• the humility to admit when we are wrong;
• safety in our homes and neighborhoods;
• protection from mass surveillance and other forms of oppression;
• food and shelter for those in need;
• health and longevity (particularly for Ruth Bader-Ginsburg);
• peace in our communities and around the world;

And if you are feeling really generous, a couple of tickets to Hamilton.

Sincerely,

An American who still believes

Quote of the day -- on sharing. And life

“The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.” 

― Carlos Barrios, Mayan elder and Ajq'ij of the Eagle Clan

Have a magnificent week, y'all.

The esteemed Benjamin Franklin, on faith and religion

That's gotta' hurt.

Especially on Sunday mornings.

Have a great day, y'all.

Quote of the day

“Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel,” Swartz wrote. “Everything gets colored by the sadness.”

Link:
Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

The good and bad

The good thing--great, really--about accepting that organized religion is silliness, is that you know you're on solid ground. You know you're not blowing smoke up your own skirt, so to speak. You know you're not kidding yourself.  You know there's no pretense.

The bad?

The bad thing?  Things?

You realize that everything is, to an extent, to a large extent, absurd.

All that matters is relationships.

All that matters is doing right.

Doing good.

Doing well.

And doing well by another human being.

Helping others.

Family.  Friends. Colleagues.  Acquaintances.  Heck, even strangers.

And love.  Ultimately, love.

But ultimately, too, truthfully, as John Cougar Mellencamp so rightfully said, in naming his album, "Nothing really matters, and what if it did?"

Most of us can't handle that kind of blunt truth.

What becomes most important, after people and relationships and love and truth and beauty is art and light and all these really wonderful things that are out there.

From the movie, "Moulin Rouge" (forgive me):

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return."

It's a blessing and a curse.

It's a helluva way to go through life.

It's a helluva way to go on.

Quote of the day

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." --Bertrand Russell

Quote of the day

A sad state of affairs, I think.

What have we become?

Let's change it.

For the better.

Starting today.

Crazy priorities

We need to cut defense spending in half, at least.

Then we need to spend at least some of that on people and food and clothing and shelter and medical help.

THOSE are wise priorities.

Quote of the day--for Sunday

And isn't this what matters? All that matters, in, really, all cases? All our cases?

Wisdom

I found this at a friend's page on Facebook, frankly, and checkd it out. I enjoyed it and found it to ring true. I thought others might like and enjoy it. We should think more about what we can live without, it seems, doesn't it?

Quote of the day

"Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head."  --Garrison Keillor


Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Quote of the day

"Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool." -Plato

On election day

The wit, wisdom and insight of  H. L. Mencken:


Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

That said, be sure to get out there and vote, y'all!

Quote of the day

"Worldly fools search for exotic masters, not realizing that their own mind is the master."   --Bodhidharma

Quote of the day

"The heart is what matters most of all."  --Kris Kristofferson  (Yeah, tough guy Kris Kristofferson.  Go figure.)


Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Quote of the day

"Believe in yourself and believe in love.  Love something.  We've got to learn to love something deeply."  --Andrew Wyeth, quoted in the book "Wisdom" by Andrew Zuckerman.

(Go, get this book.  It's inexpensive but good.)

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Just please go away

As I write this, I've been made aware of 4 events concerning the Catholic Church.

You just can't get much more out of touch with reality and the present than by being in and part of the Catholic Church.

The first thing I was made aware of is that the Vatican has made it known they're upset about a 9 year old girl, who had been raped, getting an abortion for the twins she was going to have.

You have to be effin' kidding me.

Here's a young girl, 9 years old, whose been raped, for pity's sake, and the Catholic Church thinks it should intervene, if only with opinion.

Thanks, keep it to yourself.

Can you imagine what a 9 year old girl would go through--and have to go through--to take a pregnancy to term and give birth?

Good God. (figuratively speaking).

So here there's a group of MEN--the Catholic Church--that thinks they can and should interject their opinion into this delicate and very private situation.

What chutzpah.

The 2nd situation is that Kansas City, Kansas Catholic Archbishop (where are there Archbishops--or, for that matter, Bishops, Cardinals and even Popes in the Bible?) Joseph Naumann announces, publicly, that he's "concerned personally" for Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, since she supports abortion rights.

Geez. These people need to go away.

This whole "concerned personally" nonsense is so insulting. It's a not-too-hidden, secretive phrase, meant to say that the Archbishop thinks the Governor may go to hell, let's be blunt.

It's so insulting.

It's so 15th century.

The 3rd instance, coincidentally, is that Roman Catholic Bishops (there they are again) are telling "the faithful" (can you say needy and co-dependent?) to "give up technology such as Ipods and text messaging until Easter." Read: for Lent.

Good God. They seem to outdo themselves in ridiculousness and absurdity.

These people are all stuck back some 100 to 500 years ago and their followers and media are still paying them attention and giving them headlines. We all need to get over this and move on to the intelligence and education we have and know.

We need to get away from the superstition and ignorance that is old, uninformed religion, particularly Catholicism and other fundamentalist, archaic religions, including Mormonism, fundamentalist Christianity, among others.

Finally, today, President Obama is having to announce that the government is going to rely more on science and less on religion and ideology for policy and that proof of this is that we can go back to using stem cell research in science and labs.

The biggest part of this, besides repudiating the non-science dogma of the Bush years, is that stem cells from embryos are needed so much less anyway, in the first place, due to advances in technology and secondly, the whole idea that you're "killing people" by using embryonic stem cells is laughable, at best, to the biggest part of the entire world.

We're smarter than this, people.

We all need to move on.