Six core practices to jump-start a meaningful life: Say Yes, Trust Yourself, Slow Down, Be Generous, Speak Up and Love More.
Category Archives: beliefs
Quotes of the Week
A better selection of quotes this week, which reflects a more varied weeks reading.
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.
[Steve Eley]
When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
[Psychologist BF Skinner]
We all are born mad. Some remain so.
[Samuel Beckett]
Physicists. Just because you’re not smart enough to know what the fuck they’re talking about doesn’t mean God exists.
[]
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
[Stephen Roberts]
Children are naïve – they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you’re asking for trouble.
[Frank Zappa]
Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.
[Frank Zappa; Statement to the Senate Hearing on “Porn Rock”; 1985]
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
[Isaac Newton]
You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
[Frank Zappa]
Just as long as that giraffe is made of choux pastry and dipped in chocolate! Might be best if it doesn’t mate with a pink unicorn too. 🙂
Quotes of the Week
A good selection of amusements amongst this week’s quotes …
The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.
[William Gibson]
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
[Thomas Jefferson]
Society places a great deal of importance upon “being concerned” about this, that or the other terrible thing going on somewhere in the world. I agree that a bit of this concern is useful in helping alleviate suffering in those places. But it strikes me that the vast majority of what we call “being concerned” involves getting into our own heads, turning over the information, imagining whatever we want to imagine, working up our emotions, wallowing in our feelings like a pig in mud. For some reason I’ve never been able to comprehend very clearly this makes us look good socially, like we’re doing the right thing. But I’m unable to see how watching endless reports […] about a disaster really helps anything.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/]
You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
[George Mikes, How to be Decadent]
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
[Jeff Valdez]
Life is fragile. You and I are living lives just as precarious as those people who got swept away into the ocean last week. We just fool ourselves into believing otherwise. But that’s not a reason to live in fear. Life is a terminal disease.
[Brad Warner on the Sendai Earthquake at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake.html]
Every mountain; every rock on this planet; every living thing; every piece of you and me was forged in the furnaces of space.
[Prof. Brian Cox; Wonders of the Universe; BBC2 TV, 13 March 2011]
I hear the argument, and it is an ingenious argument only a lawyer of his brilliance could make …
[David Cameron replying in House of Commons to Sir Malcolm Rifkind]
Never play with a dead cat and above all never make friends with a monkey.
[Osbert Sitwell, quoting his father in Tales My Father Taught Me. Thanks to Katyboo for this one.]
The natural world is a living erotic museum filled with variations in male genitalia, illustrating how natural selection has paid nearly as much attention to the male member as Catholic priests have.
[http://zinjanthropus.wordpress.com/]
To you , I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the loyal opposition.
[Woody Allen]
“Are there circumstances in which the government might …?”
“Well there could be circumstances. To answer your question in any other way would preclude all possibilities.”
[William Hague, UK Foreign Secretary, answering a question from the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee; 16/03/2011]
Quotes of the Week
Another weekly selection of esoterica …
Anyone who tells you that your body is anything other than the beautiful, glorious MIRACLE that it is is, as they say in “Princess Bride”, probably selling something.
[Emily Nagoski at ]
[E]ach of us has the job of finding the beliefs we’re not interested in carrying with us any more, uprooting them, and finding something new and healthier to take their place. This process is neither easy nor painless. But it is a path to the confidence and joy I advocate everyone bring to bed with them every night.
[Emily Nagoski at ]
Men always fall into the absurdity of endeavouring to develop the mind, to push it violently forward in this direction or in that. The mind should be receptive, a harp waiting to catch the winds, a pool ready to be ruffled, not a bustling busybody, for ever trotting about on the pavement looking for a new bun shop.
[Robert Hichens, The Green Carnation, 1894]
Sex ought to be a wholly satisfying link between two affectionate people from which they emerge unanxious, rewarded, and ready for more.
[Alex Comfort]
The debate [in 1907 American Medicine about the weight of the soul] went on from the May issue all the way through December, whereupon I lost the thread, my eye having strayed across the page to “A Few Points in the Ancient History of Medicine and Surgery,” by Harry H Grigg, MD. It is with thanks to Harry H Grigg that I can now hold forth at cocktail parties on the history of haemorrhoids, gonorrhoea, circumcision, and the speculum.
[Mary Roach; Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
[Henry Miller]
A promiscuous person is someone who is getting more sex than you are.
[Victor Lownes]
We do not remember. A certain group of our little people do this for us. They live in that part of the brain which has become known as the ‘fold of Broca’ … There may be twelve or fifteen shifts that change about and are on duty at different times like men in a factory … Therefore it seems likely that remembering a thing is all a matter of getting in touch with the shift that was on duty when the recording was done.
[Thomas Edison; Diaries]
Public Holidays
Diamond Geezer posted an interesting analysis yesterday about the UK’s public holidays. In it he shows why we will never get St George’s Day adopted as a public holiday. Basically this is because it concentrates too many public holidays in the period from late March to late May, especially given that Easter most usually falls in April and this we would get Easter, St George’s Day and May Day holidays all within a period of 3-4 weeks. Well yes, that’s just like this year when Easter is exceptionally late (it can fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April) when we also have the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding knees-up.
Diamond Geezer also makes the point that we’re essentially stuck with this scheme as we can’t move Easter because it’s fixed by the church. Err … why not? We moved the late May holiday away from Whitsun which is also fixed by the church. And we don’t actually celebrate May Day but pick the first Monday in May. So why can we not move (or ignore) Easter?
I suggest an alternative scheme for our public holidays, viz:
- New Years Day (1 January)
- Spring Equinox (21 March)
- St George’s Day (23 April)
- May Day (1 May)
- Summer Solstice (21 June)
- August Holiday (last Monday in August)
- Autumn Equinox (21 September)
- Christmas Day (25 December)
- Boxing Day (26 December)
Note that I propose we keep the actual days and not the nearest Monday, although obviously where any of these falls on a weekend they would be moved to the next available working day. Note too that I have not stooped to include red letter days from ethnic minority traditions.
In the provinces of the UK St George’s Day could be replaced by their “national day”: St David in Wales (1 March), St Andrew in Scotland (30 November), St Patrick in Northern Ireland (17 March).
This has, to my mind, several advantages. It spreads out our holidays a bit better. We get one extra day bringing us more into line with western Europe and other English speaking countries where the average is more like 10 or 12 public holidays annually. It also takes the calendar away from the religious focus and returns it to the actual solar cycle without making it too overtly pagan.
It also presents some other options:
- We could keep Good Friday, if desired which would generally slot in between the Spring Equinox and St George’s Day. I see no logic, sacred or secular, for retaining Easter Monday, although this could be retained in preference to Good Friday.
- If desired the late August holiday might move back to the first Monday in August (as it still is in Scotland) from where it was moved in 1965, thus better harmonising the UK’s public holidays.
- To be logical Christmas should relocate to the Winter Solstice (21 December). However given how entrenched Christmas now is in the collective psyche I can see this not being acceptable. Maybe we should scrap Boxing Day and move that to the Winter Solstice? No, that’s a really bad idea because it will give us three separate holidays within 2 weeks (Solstice, Christmas Day and New Years Day) thus we risk everything shutting down completely for two weeks rather than the current week. So Christmas has to be retained as is, which also helps the balance of holidays between sacred and secular.
I still see one problem with this scheme though. There is still a long (3 month) gap between the autumn Equinox and Christmas, at a time when we arguable need a break. Trafalgar Day (21 October) has been mooted as a possible public holiday. I personally don’t like this as I feel we ought to stay clear of celebrating the military and I’d rule out Armistice Day (11 November) for the same reason (see also my dislike of Remembrance Day). Equally Guy Fawkes Day risks being interpreted as celebrating terrorism rather that its defeat. Halloween I would also rule out as it would inevitably perpetuate that annoying American import: trick or treat. Perhaps we ought to celebrate Harvest Festival (which need not, of course, be religious but remind us where our food comes from) in mid- to late-October?
Anyone got any better ideas?
Quotes of the Week
This week’s selection of the good, the bad and the ugly …
Relationships are like a card game where you start with two hearts and a diamond, but end up needing a club and spade.
[Tony Green on Facebook]
Every concept the mind can create includes its opposite. No thought is ultimate because each idea depends on every other idea it might possibly contrast with for its apparent self existence. Our own existence as individuals is dependent upon all of creation. This does not negate our individual existence. It is an attempt to see our individual existence in a different light.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com]
When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?
[Montaigne]
Urethane treatment is standard on all products (with exceptions)
[Amtico Flooring Brochure]
Comedians really aren’t that different from scientists. They look at the world and question why things are as they are and try to find an answer. It’s just that scientists do it with far more rigour and the possibility that humanity will be much improved by their discoveries. Perhaps comedians are just lazy scientists. Very, very lazy, stupid scientists.
[Robin Ince, The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]
And finally, dreadful joke of the week …
Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel prize?
Because he was out standing in his field.
[The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]
Bring back Basil Brush, all is forgiven!
Conspiracy Theories
Like many of you, I have a soft spot for conspiracy theories. Although I wouldn’t claim to be an out-and-out believer in such theories I’m a natural skeptic, I’ve worked in business and I’ve been around long enough to know that there is more goes on under the surface than often meets the eye – and that sometimes, just occasionally, that may amount to a conspiracy. But I also know that all organisations, managers, politicians, governments spin (to use the current euphemism for “lie”) everything to their (hoped for) advantage. Often they don’t actually realise they’re doing it – I know; I’ve done it myself. And seldom is there any attempt at conspiracy. But just sometimes there is.
It was interesting therefore to see, in the December 2010 edition of Scientific American, a short article by professional skeptic Michael Shermer under the title “The Conspiracy Theory Detector – How to tell the difference between true and false conspiracy theories”. Shermer ends the article with the following “rules”:
[W]e cannot just dismiss all such theories out of hand, because real conspiracies do sometimes happen. Instead we should look for signs that indicate a conspiracy theory is likely to be untrue. The more that it manifests the following characteristics, the less probable that the theory is grounded in reality:
- Proof of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of “connecting the dots” between events that need not be causally connected. When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections – or to randomness – the conspiracy theory is likely to be false.
- The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off. People are usually not nearly so powerful as we think they are.
- The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.
- Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes.
- The conspiracy encompasses a grand ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system. If it suggests world domination, the theory is even less likely to be true.
- The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events.
- The conspiracy theory assigns portentous, sinister meanings to what are most likely innocuous, insignificant events.
- The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality.
- The theorist is indiscriminately suspicious of all government agencies or private groups, which suggests an inability to nuance differences between true and false conspiracies.
- The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all disconfirming evidence and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he or she has a priori determined to be the truth.
The fact that politicians sometimes lie or that corporations occasionally cheat does not mean that every event is the result of a tortuous conspiracy. Most of the time stuff just happens, and our brains connect the dots into meaningful patterns.
Quote: Boredom
Boredom is important. Most of your life is dull, tasteless and boring.
[Brad Warner]
Quotes of the Week
OK, guys & gals, here’s this week’s selection of wacky words …
Come on, Milhouse, there’s no such thing as a soul! It’s just something they made up to scare kids, like the Boogie Man or Michael Jackson.
[Bart Simpson]Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
[Philip K Dick]Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what’s right.
[Isaac Asimov]I’ve come to believe quite strongly that monogamy is not at all the natural condition of human beings, despite what we’ve been told for so many years. For some people it comes effortlessly. For others it is absolutely impossible. I think for most of us it is possible, but extremely difficult. When I hear that someone has failed at it I am never shocked or surprised.
[Brad Warner; at http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/02/disrobing-genpo–brad-warner/]Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless, and foolhardy. Children and old people have everything to gain and nothing much to lose. It’s middle-age which is cursed by the desperate need to cling to some finger-hold halfway up the mountain, to conform, not to cause trouble, to behave well.
[Sir John Mortimer, Murderers & Other Friends]We will have to build … devices that will store and release time to where it is needed, because men cannot progress if they are carried like leaves on a stream. People need to be able to waste time, make time, lose time and buy time.
[Terry Pratchett; Thief Of Time]Most people have some means of filling up the gap between perception and reality, and, after all, in those circumstances there are far worse things than gin.
[Terry Pratchett; Thief Of Time]
Quotes of the Week
Quite a lot of quotes, and slightly early, this week as I missed last week’s post. And lot’s of zen type quotes too as I’m getting to the end of several zen books. So here goes …
There is no optimal state of consciousness. Optimal is just an idea, another manifestation of the Great Somewhere Else. Consciousness is just an idea.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]What is true during dreamless sleep is true no matter whether you can recall the experience and write about it or not. What is true in a whorehouse in Bangkok is true whether you visit it and take Polaroids or not. What is true for six-legged aliens on the fifth planet circling Epsilon Centauri is true whether you go there and talk to them or not. You may never know the life your toothbrush leads when you’re not around but it’s certainly real.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
[Jane Wagner]After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once.
[Seagal Rinpoche; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]Reincarnation is a fun subject. I do like the concept ‘how can you return if you never leave?’ I think that sums it up nicely. From the perspective of our experience, it’s easy to find examples of how this might actually work. Consider this: when you were five, playing in your yard, you suddenly thought a strange thought – I wonder who I will be when I grow up? Will I still be me? And of course, you did grow up, and you are still you – but you are not the child who asked that question so long ago. Did the child ‘die’? No,it didn’t. But the child is not there any more – so how can that be? Maybe reincarnation is a little like that?
[Mr Reee; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]The pen is mightier than the sword but a vagina beats anything you’ve ever seen.
[Bizarro Seagal; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]‘Bonsai?’
‘The Japanese art of training little trees to resemble big ones. Wouldn’t work unless there was a scale-independent structure.’
‘I knew a bloke once did bonsai mountains,’ said Olly. It took a few seconds for us to twig.
‘You mean pet rocks?’ enquired Deirdre.
‘Suitably fragmented rocks do look a lot like mountains,’ I said.
‘He didn’t just sit a rock in a bowl, you know,’ said Olly. ‘It’s lots of work making proper bonsai mountains. He had all the gear – little hosepipes with spray-action nozzles and fans stuck on special stands to weather them with miniature rainstorms, spark generators for small-scale lightning, lots of tiny mirrors to focus the Sun’s rays. Even a tiny snow machine.’
‘Really?’ Deirdre was interested in gardening and this just about counted.
‘Yeah. But he had to stop.’
‘Why?’
‘The rocks got infested with greenfly. On skis.’ Deirdre hit him.
[Ian Stewart; Cows in the Maze]The tricky part about being human is that you have to be your own pack leader. You have to know that you can keep yourself safe, stand over your own emotional center of gravity and stay stable but responsive.
[Emily Nagoski; at ]Let me tell you, friends, this is an amazing book. Just reading it put me into an altered state of consciousness. I entered a realm where perceptions of form and matter vanished, to be replaced by an amorphous void beyond all thought and senses, a world of peace and quiet undisturbed by the anxieties and uncertainties of the material universe. In other words, I fell right to sleep.
[Brad Warner; Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death and Dogen’s Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye]Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
[Indira Gandhi]What is religion but the distillation of an individual’s perception of the truth? By that definition, even atheists have religion.
[Amelia Nagoski]Chinese medicine calls the gut the lower dan t’ien – guess where the upper dan t’ien is? Yep, the head. My gut is a brain just like the one in my skull.
[Amelia Nagoski]There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to
new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.
[Seagal Rinpoche; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/02/reasons-to-be-cheerful.html]