Category Archives: thoughts

arts, beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting and … ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
[Wassily Kandinsky, 1910]

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.
[Chuck Palahniuk]

It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your pants if there’s nothing in your brain to connect it to.

Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

… the result of some wobbly high-heel work at a drink addled giggle-fest.
[Alison Cross]

amusements, beliefs, nudism, thoughts

Nude Day at Work

I’ve posted quite a bit about nudity, naturism and “clothing optional” over the years; a search on “nudity” will pick up the majority of postings.  As you’ll all guess by now I’m a great believer in not wearing clothes if I don’t need to: “nude when possible; clothed when necessary” is the motto.  Having said that I’m not an active member of the naturist movement, partly because I’m not a clubby sort of person and partly down to sheer convenience; I do though support British Naturism (BN) by being a member.

All of which is a preamble to say that I’m not sure I have blogged this cartoon before; if I have it was before this incarnation of the weblog, so a long time ago.  You’ll need to click the image to get a larger, readable, version.

Now wouldn’t that be a great idea.  I wonder which company would have the courage to be the first to introduce Mondays (or any day!) as Nude Day at work?

science, sexuality, thoughts

We're Unique!

What makes humans special and unique?

Well according to a recent Scientific American article it is very simple …

We masturbate.  A lot.

(Oh, come on, it’s not that shocking!)

But the uniqueness is that no other animal, including our close primate relatives, does.  The theory seems to be, at least in part, that it’s all to do with the ability of our well developed brains to create entirely novel and imaginary picture shows and videos.

I’ll leave it to you to follow the link and read the article.  It’s long, but it’s interesting, especially if you’re a science geek.

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.

Although the world’s religions may differ fundamentally from one other in their metaphysical views, when it comes to their teachings on the actual practice of ethics, there is great convergence. All the faith traditions emphasize a virtuous way of being, the purification of the mind from negative thoughts and impulses, the doing of good deeds, and living a meaningful life.
[Dalai Lama]

Don’t forget those irregular verbs like hoggo, piggeri, swini, gruntum.
[pmh {at} cix]

Sex and money: the forked root of evil
[Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool]

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
[Tom Robbins]

Girls are like pianos. When they’re not upright, they’re grand.
[Benny Hill]

freedom of speech, medical, people, science, sexuality, thoughts

Obscene …

3 Comments

… and obscene is not a word I use often or lightly, but I am horrified at the story which is circulating of a New York doctor who is reducing the clitorises of young girls in the belief that they are abnormally large. In deference to my blood pressure I shall say no more here but refer you to the story over on The F-Word. If this is even half true the man (yes, a man, of course) is in my view a paedophile and child abuser.

Hat-tip: jillysheep.

beliefs, medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Religion and Sex

“Religion** is bad for your sex life”, at least according to Dr Emily Nagoski.  And she should know as she’s a college health (and sex) educator in Massachusetts, with a doctorate in Health Behaviour and Human Sexuality and other degrees in counselling and psychology.  What I like is that she holds very firm and forthright views and isn’t afraid to air them.  In what she calls “my most offensive post yet” she says why she believes religion is bad for your sex life and how it is that she cannot choose to believe and have any faith.  Here are a few snippets:

Religion** is bad for your sex life. I don’t mean it doesn’t help, I mean it’s actively destructive […]

[…] religion is bad both at the individual level and at the cultural level. Individually, it results in inhibitions, shame, fear, guilt, bias against others, and acceptance of gender-based stereotypes. Culturally it results in the oppression of women and sexual minorities […] and the obstruction of the scientific study of sexuality.

But the worst thing about religion is that it makes it okay to just believe shit because you want to. No religion, no matter how liberal, escapes that.

[…] I think faith/religiosity is an innate part of human psychology. I think human belief in an invisible family in the sky is either product or byproduct of evolution. However, it is, for no apparent reason, NOT an innate part of MY psychology […]

I know that the experience of faith is both real and important for lots of people, and I know it offends them when I discuss faith as a form of self-delusion, but I genuinely don’t understand, plain old don’t understand […] how a person can CHOOSE to believe in something.

They choose to believe it because it makes them feel good. And I think this characterizes MOST people. I think MOST people are able to believe more or less anything they like the sound of. Indeed we’ve made a virtue of it. Just BELIEVE. It’s The Secret, ya know. […]

[…] most of the work I do related to religion involves trying to untangle the knots religion has knit into a person’s sexuality. In my experience, in 90% or more cases religion has caused some form of damage to a person’s sexuality […]

Which is sort of interesting in that it says what I have wondered for many years.  Mind I wouldn’t go so far as Emily, I think — at least not a stridently.  And just because I don’t believe any any form of overarching deity(s) (I just don’t need them, or anyone, to decide my morals for me) doesn’t mean I would deny such a crutch to anyone else.

No, what was interesting for me was that someone who should know, and should be in a position to see, has the courage to say that religion has an adverse effect on sexuality and thus by implication on other taboo areas of health.

But do go and read the original post in full for yourselves.  It’s interesting even if you don’t/can’t agree with it.  And there is a (surprising good natured) discussion in the comments too.

** By religion Emily means ANY and ALL religions.

amusements, science, thoughts

Adams Complexity Threshold

The eponymous author of the Scott Adams Blog (yes, that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert) a couple of days ago wrote a prescient piece about complexity.  It’s worth reading the piece, including the comments, in their entirity. But here’s a taster:

The Adams Complexity Threshold is the point at which something is so complicated it no longer works.

The Gulf oil spill is probably a case of complexity reaching the threshold. It was literally impossible for anyone to know if the oil rig was safe or not. The engineering was too complex. I’m sure management thought it was safe, or hoped it was safe, or hallucinated that it was safe. It wasn’t possible to know for sure …

It’s our nature to blame a specific person for a specific screw-up, but complexity is what guarantees mistakes will happen and won’t be caught …

Complexity is often a natural outgrowth of success. Man-made complexity is simply a combination of things that we figured out how to do right, one layered on top of the other, until failure is achieved.

And from the comments:

I think government has a lot to do with adding complexity. Some failure happens and those in charge feel they have to earn their constituents votes by “doing something.” This usually results in regulations that work as well as the Maginot Line stopped Hitler …

Humans just can’t leave well enough alone. When (insert anything here) works perfectly the human race will re-refine it into incompetence. Why? Because eventually, no matter how incredibly efficient something is there’s always some Wag out there insisting it could be better. Even though there’s no rational reason to tinker with it, eventually people buy into the need for “continuous improvement” until the entire thing collapses …

“In simplicity is power.”

Why is it that so few can see this? Oh, sorry, Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome.