Prescience of Mortality

I was going for a run this morning, listening to Rammstein through my earphones and running along a main street on the footpath and thinking that at any time a person may drive out of the driveway of one of the apartment blocks there and hit me when I was running across the driveway and then I would be thrown onto the road in front of the speeding traffic and I would be royally squashed by a car or truck - stone dead. And the thing that I thought about was that then there would be no way for me to write and nobody would know that I was dead and that people would get upset that I hadn't responded to emails.

Crazy the things you think about when you are running along the street in one's middle years - because, of course, the issue of one's own mortality is now always strongly in the forefront of one's thoughts. (Well, not all the time, of couse, I don't want to sound that maudlin, but, as for most people, it is something that is there front and centre in their lives - or, at least, should be, in some manner, having to have to be dealt with).

Bitter Sweet Contemplation Of Another New Year

It is so interesting to contemplate new years coming at one at this age. A bitter-sweet combination of having been there and done that, totally, over and over in one's life (the same old work with the same old issues and stupidities that have to be dealt with), mixed with a healthy dollop of hope about new experiences and new opportunities opening up with new stages in one's life.

A delicate balancing act at this stage in our lives I think - it is a completely different mix when you are younger and when you are older than this. One of the beauties of living - that there are so many unique and interesting stages in ones lives that can never really be known about before experiencing them (for all the reading and talking that one may do with others about what they have gone through and how things work, the vast chaotic complexity of the universe means that your individual experience of having to live through a "stage" (so to speak) is exactly that - your unique individual experience. It has special elements all of your own - which obviously have a relationship to what others have gone through, but may still be subtly different enough to make you have to pay attention to work through what it is all about.

And the other thing is that if you spent ALL your time researching exactly how you should deal with a certain stage in one's life, then you would not actually be doing any living in that stage of one's life - which sort of defeats the purpose (but, indeed, is one of the ways that some people deal with certain stages in their life - for some people, it is their whole life). So, as a consequence, because one is not fully researching every little nuance that somebody may have documented about a certain stage or experience or life event, then one simply has to live through it oneself and work out, for oneself and by oneself, what to do about it all.

That is the beauty of art - so many people can express what is the same universal story (a love story, a tragedy, etc etc) in so many different forms - they experience the situation and feel the need to express it in their own unique and individual experience - even though, for instance, they could read Tristam and Iseult, or hear Tristan und Isolde, or see Romeo and Juliet, and connect with a similar experience.

Redit orbis in orbem

Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.

-- Raleigh, Sir Walter

Siegen kommt nicht vom Liegen

Siegen kommt nicht vom Liegen

-- German Proverb


(Success doesn’t come to the sleeper.)

New Year Sonnet

A poem for the new year from Edmund Spenser (from Amoretti and Epithalamion). He only wrote it in 1595 (or a bit before) so I am sure that it is still as applicable now as it was then (source: http://uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/amoretti.html)


SONNET. IIII.

NEW yeare forth looking out of Ianus gate,
Doth seeme to promise hope of new delight:
and bidding th' old Adieu, his passed date
bids all old thoughts to die in dumpish spright.
And calling forth out of sad Winters night,
fresh loue, that long hath slept in cheerlesse bower:
wils him awake, and soone about him dight
his wanton wings and darts of deadly power.
For lusty spring now in his timely howre,
is ready to come forth him to receiue:
and warnes the Earth with diuers colord flowre,
to decke hir selfe, and her faire mantle weaue.
Then you faire flowre, in whom fresh youth doth raine,
prepare your selfe new loue to entertaine.

Hope

You know, one of the most amazing things about human beings is HOPE.  The fact that almost anything can be endured, that almost anything becomes bearable, if there is some sort of hope around – either associated with some enterprise, or somewhere someplace in one’s life.  The beauty of hope is that it does not need to be reasonable – it can be hope from the most unlikely source, it can be the most irrational hope imaginable – yet it will still do the job – set the light to life so that life is now that to be loved, rather than that to be exhausted, even extinguished.  Hope diverts the eyes, to that which is good in one’s mind, away from the totality of horror that constitutes our lives here on earth.

 

I was reading an article in The New Yorker recently about mega-churches, seeker churches, in the USA, and one of the main points they made was that these churches are all about giving hope, here on earth, to those whose lives are in transition.  A new message, different from the established churches, in many ways, and one of the reasons for the phenomenal growth of these new churches.

 

I was reading a play recently written (not yet published), and it said:

“Exactly!  People have to go on living.  There is a new world now.  A new way of living.  I fear that Reshel knows that better than we do.”

“Who is Reshel?”

“You know him.  He’s gaining influence.  He’s been through other places, working his way around … he knows, Alor.”

“Know what?  What is there to know, now?”

“He knows that people need hope.”

“What hope could he bring?”

“False hope, then.  Perhaps he thinks he can control people.”

 

Old Creek

Old Creek

Since before anyone remembers
It has been clear shining like silver
Though the moonlight penetrates it
And the wind ruffles it
No trace of either remains
Today I would not dare
To expound the secret
Of the stream bed
But I can tell you that the blue dragon
Is coiled there.


-- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

A Pellucid Ocean

In a pellucid ocean,
Bubbles arise and dissolve again.
Just so, thoughts are no
Different from ultimate reality,
So don’t find fault; remain at ease.
Whatever arises, whatever occurs,
Don’t grasp—release it on the spot.
Appearances, sounds, and objects
Are all one’s own mind;
There’s nothing except mind.

  -- Buddha

Python

This guy is correct - Python is a seriously great language and environment for developing systems!!!!

Source: http://xkcd.com/353/

BTW: this is a fantastic webcomic - for the inner geek in us all!!!!

Moonlit Dewdrops

Careful! Even moonlit dewdrops,
If you’re lured to watch,
Are a wall before the Truth.


-- Sogyo (1667–1731)

Marriage - Minimalist, Female

Cute minimalist take on marriage from a female perspective: http://www.chloroformity.com/archives/000037.html

Bardo

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13848

Bardo

Dangerously frail is what his hand was like
when he showed up at our house,
three or four days after his death,
and stood at the foot of our bed.

Though we had expected him to appear
in some form, it was odd, the clarity
and precise decrepitude of his condition,
and how his hand, frail as it was,

lifted me from behind my head, up from the pillow,
so that no longer could I claim it was a dream,
nor deny that what your father wanted,
even with you sleeping next to me,

was to kiss me on the lips.
There was no refusing his anointing me
with what I was meant to bear of him
from where he was, present in the world,

a document loose from the archives
of form—not spectral, not corporeal—
in transit, though not between lives or bodies:
those lips on mine, then mine on yours.

Michael Collier

Dark Wild Realm
Mariner Books

Dedicated to the memory of Ben Branch.

Emotional Job Committment

Even though there have been heaps of issues about what has happened in the business, you are still rather emotionally committed to the job that you first got there.  Do you think that it is something that is universal, or just peculiar to you, or just peculiar to the situation that you find yourself in now, for this particular circumstance?  Are there some people born or generated (it is probably way more environmental than it is biological/genetic) that really invest emotional energy in what they are doing and whether they do well or not (achieve or succeed or not), as opposed to other people who really couldn't care less (in Australia, we say "Couldn't give a rat's arse").

 

Or maybe it is just varying threshold levels for this type of commitment and attachment, to differing situations.

If you were a true Buddhist, you would simply acknowledge that the ultimate goal is non-attachment, and that one would let go all the mental accoutrements of the job, the people, the circumstance and simply move through life.

Still interested to see how a Buddhist monk would run your job.

 

Stupidity and intelligence

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

  - Bertrand Russell

Blogging

The post below may indicate the actual raison d'etre of blogs.

They may never have been "money making" exercises, but rather, different forms of communication which have some relationship to what constitutes income (for a person or an organisation), but, yet, more importantly, are a type of general communication satisfying a human need ("I need to express myself" - some how, some way).  It is probably the circumstance that blogs were never designed to be "monetized" (as the crass terminology goes) and that Scott is just being aware that he was pushing against the "natural order" of what blogs were/are about.

It appears, from what has been indicated at the end of the blog, that Scott is planning to "revert" to the "I need to express myself freely" model for his blog.

And, maybe not so coincidentally, spend some more time on real life!!

---

From Scott Adams' DIlbert Blog on 26 November 2007:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/11/going-forward.html

Going Forward

I've decided to blog less. I posted daily (mostly) for two years, with the theory that my efforts would be compensated in four ways.

1. Advertising dollars
2. Compiling the best posts into a book.
3. Growing the audience for Dilbert
4. Artistic satisfaction.

Readership of The Dilbert Blog is growing rapidly, but at about the same rate people figure out how to use RSS feeds to get the content without the ads. So there's no longer a correlation between how hard I work and the ad income I earn. It topped out at "trivial," even while the audience grew to substantial.

My book based on the blog posts, STICK TO DRAWING COMICS, MONKEY-BRAIN! got great reviews for content, but angry reactions in people who feel that other people, who didn't read the content on the Internet, and never will, should not buy the book, to protect the rights of the people who already read it on the Internet, and might want to read it again for free sometime. You win.

I hoped that people who loved the blog would spill over to people who read Dilbert, and make my flagship product stronger. Instead, I found that if I wrote nine highly popular posts, and one that a reader disagreed with, the reaction was inevitably "I can never read Dilbert again because of what you wrote in that one post." Every blog post reduced my income, even if 90% of the readers loved it. And a startling number of readers couldn't tell when I was serious or kidding, so most of the negative reactions were based on misperceptions.

Lastly, the blog has been a source of tremendous artistic satisfaction. I enjoyed being relatively uncensored, and interacting with the readers on fun topics. That's why I will continue blogging, albeit less controversially. I'll just do it less often, especially over the holidays. It's hard to tell the family I can't spend time with them because I need to create free content on the Internet that will lower our income.

Try www.reader.google.com to see blog posts without the ads.

Excerpt from Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech at Stanford

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/1313/Steve-Jobss-Commencement-Speech-at-Stanford

Just Do It!

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

-- Mark Twain

In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.

-- Luigi Pirandello

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

-- T. S. Elliot

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

-- Buddha

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.

-- Nora Roberts

Work and Life

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."
-- Albert Camus

"Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route."
-- Albert Camus

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life."
-- Albert Camus

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness.
-- Jefferson, Thomas

Be strong and courageous, and do the work.
-- Chronicles 28:20

Time Off

Well, back at work. Had a wonderful time at Rotto - the view was magnificent - and did some writing. All good!

Passed Like Strangers

For twenty seven years
I've always sought the Way.
Well, this morning we passed
Like strangers on the road.

- Kokuin (10th century)