A Fool

It doesn't pay to argue with a fool when the fool doesn't recognize which of you is the fool.

Being Nice

If you are different from the norms society sees, wants, expects and often accepts, people may be nice to you because either they're just being polite to hide their dislke, even hate, for you or your choices in life, or they truly accept you as a person and may even want and like you as a friend.

The difference is always hard to tell at first and even long afterward as people often hide, even disguise, their true feelings about you with politeness. You may never know until in those moments of quiet comfort with them, they'll relax and be your friend.

And then you know they don't just accept you, they are your friend. They won't be politely nice anymore, they'll be what friends are, themselves with you and you are with them. Cherish them as they will be few in number and in the years between new friends.

Embarrassingly Stupid

If you ever done anything or said anything embarrassingly stupid and feel terrible enough you want to hide, just look around you and look at your watch. You'll notice the world didn't end and time didn't stop. Everything goes on as it did just before that moment which fades into everything else in time.

What's Worse

What's worse than an adult man being silly? Everyone thinks he's just being stupid. The answer? An old man being silly because everyone thinks he has a mental condition due to his age. So if you're an old man, be silly anyway. Enjoy knowing how sane you are when everyone thinks you're not.

Two Rules

The first is the old adage, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything." To which I've added over the years, "If you can't say a negative in a positive way, then don't say it."

Apologetic Negative

When someone starts with an apology about being negative, they're not apologetic, because if they were, then they wouldn't be negative. They only want you to think they're sorry, but they're not sorry, they're just negative.

Perfect

Use the word perfect carefully as once said there is nothing to make it better and everything to make it worse.

The Tragedy

Ugly is one thing. Reality is another. The sadness, and worse the tragedy, is when they come together in the description of someone, something or some event, and there is no mistaking the truthfulness of those words.

Omelettes

The neat thing if you start out making an omelette and it isn't turning into one is that you can always make scrambled eggs mixed with omelette stuffing. It may not look as nice or pretty but it will always taste as good, maybe better, and it goes well on top of a waffle with butter and real maple syrup.

Sometimes beautiful scrambled eggs can be better than an ugly looking omelette.

Light Bulb

"I may be a hairdresser, but I still have a light bulb."
                                      - Lecion

She was the terrific young woman who used to cut my hair at Supercuts before moving on to better things. She always showed me that someone's job doesn't necessarily show their character or what's in the heart. Or the fact they are intelligent, smart and/or wise.

Another Worst Thing?

One of the worst things for a wealthy person who owns supercars is waking up to see a foot of snow on the ground and the roads covered in ice and snow, and realizing all their supercars don't work in this weather. They can't get the joy of driving one that day unless they plan to put it in a snowbank in a real fast hurry and make it one really ugly, expensive wreck for everyone to laugh at driving by.

The Worst Thing?

One of the worst things for a wealthy person who owns supercars is sitting in one in the heavy evening commuter traffic in a rain storm surrounded by people in cars who don't give a shit about their car. They're just like everyone else and want to get somewhere else. In short, they're just another person stuck in traffic.

Quote

"You definitely have to have your act together between your ears..."

                                        -- Ed Schulz, December 10, 2012

A Good Law

A good law, no matter how much the elected politicians talk about it being a good law, is only good when it's enforced and only then when there are the resources to enforce it, like people, money and technology.

It may sound like a good law in principle but practice is what makes it a good law.

Wanting & Being

Who we want to be and who we can be are rarely the same; one exists in our imagination, the other in our reality. Our quest in life is the journey into being the one person the two are within ourself.

Simplicity

KISS

Anything more is a waste of words, like these.

Failure

Failure is always an option, and sometimes, even a choice. The key is learning from the experience of failure than allowing it to decide your reaction.

In the End

In the end.
That's it. That's all.
Nothing more.
Just the end.

Waking Up

I go to bed every night hoping that quietly in the night something would change and I would wake up in the morning finding myself and my life better than yesterday, and hoping I would be happy about what happened overnight, quietly while I slept.

Yet I go to bed knowing it's all wishful thinking, and nothing really happens overnight to change myself and my life for the better, but still, I always go to bed hoping anyway.

Silence

Expressing sympathy and especially empathy, for something for which you have no experience, especially when there is no way you would ever have that experience, always comes off as condescension, almost always producing the opposite reaction than you intend.

To put it simply, just don't. Don't talk about something to express sympathy or empathy you don't understand from personal experience, especially when you start with, "I've never...", meaning had the experience, but you think you understand. You don't.

So it is wise to follow the old adage about keeping silent than speaking. It is better to express yourself with friendship than with advice.

Remembering

The problem with thinking of something when you go to sleep but don't want to get up to write it down, is that in the morning you remember you had something to remember, you just can't remember what it was.

Fairness

Why is fairness the one thing everyone agree is the right thing to do, but is always the hardest thing do actually do?

Chance of Rain

What exactly is the chance when they forecast, "Chance of precipitation is 100%"? If there is 0% chance of no preciptation, where's the chance of it? Not even Las Vegas would take the best with those odds, except there's always a fool somewhere who'll gladly part with their money.

Some Things

Some things don't end as planned, expected or hoped, but just end, good, bad or indifferent, and how it ends depends on the song being sung by those standing there.

Take Heart

Take heart of your youth when you're young, for there will be a moment in your life you realize it was and not is, and in that moment you will see what everyone else has been telling you is true, what you missed in your youth is gone, once and forever.

Feel & Think

Feel with your mind and think with your heart. Teach them to see what the other knows. Teach them to understand the whole of life, of you, and of the world.

Gravity

I don't trip, stumble and fall. Gravity is just playing a practical joke on me when I wasn't paying attention.

Beautiful

We are all born beautiful. A few keep being called beautiful by the luck of their genes. The rest of us lose it shortly into our life and have to earn being called beautiful back, if we're lucky, which is rare. So what changed, or maybe the word is misplaced at the beginning of our life and should be used at the end of our life? Not so much to describe us but to describe us and our life?

A Moment

It takes a lifetime for a person to live to a moment in their life. It only takes a moment for someone to damage, even destroy, that life for the rest of their life. Even yours. Even mine.

Youth

The problem with youth is that it's wasted on the young. We've all heard it, so why don't we believe until we're old and we see it in young people what we didn't see when we were young? Because youth is oblivious to understanding age.

Opinions

You can say what you want, what you deeply believe, but it won't change the facts and it won't change science. You are subject to those whether you believe them or not. You are not immune from them. You can only show your ignorance of them.

Why Two

If they offer you a lifetime guarrantee on their product, why do they offer you a second one for free?

You Know

You know you're old when you see greatest hits albums for bands you've never heard of them let alone listened to any of their songs. And you're know you're old when they say this is one of the most famous groups in the last decade or two and you can't remember them or this songs.

It's time to change your radio station to listen and learn about who's new, to update and refresh your sense of good music. Become young again.

Believing in God

The issue with people who say, "I believe in God.", is that it's often their God they believe in and not the God of all people, of all living things, of this earth, and of the universe. They only believe their God is God despite no religion is a majority in the world.

When they say they believe in God, they are also saying your God isn't God, and to many, even the enemy of their God and them. Doesn't the Bible say God is the God of all men, meaning all people? Doesn't that include people of all religions and faith?

Would God really say what they say?

Nobody & Somebody

We are just one of the 7 billion people alive today and one of the nearly 110 billion people who have ever lived. We are nobody and we are somebody. We are universal and we are individual. We don't get to choose which, and yet, we do get to live our live to be indiviual, ourself.

I Wish

I wish... Don't we all?

Inside Us All

Inside each of us is a spirit few people see, and fewer people know. If only we chose the freedom we have to express that spirit and the freedom to share it with more people than those few. Each of us has the freedom, if only we dared ourself to be free.

Young

No matter our age, we are all young at heart. It is how we remember ourself and want to be remembered. When we were young.

Winning & Losing

Is the worst day winning better than the best day losing? Is an ugly win better than a great loss? Is winning by the other team losing better than you losing because while you played well the other team played better? Is winning and losing really about how you played than the score?

Why

Why is that when we see someone talking out loud to themself we assume they're crazy? Ok, before cellphones came along, since now you can't tell if someone appearing to talk to themself is actually doing that or on a call, but still if they were just talking with themself, why do we call them crazy, but when someone says they talk to God, they're not crazy?

Since when does it matter who the imaginary friend is the person is talking with when they are talking to themself? Why is God the only one someone can talk with themself where we don't consider them crazy? Isn't the idea of talking to an imaginary universal supreme being crazy?

Wouldn't you think they needed a reality check talking to this imaginary "friend" to help them regain some sense of sanity? Wouldn't it be better if they talked to someone who actually spoke back, like in person than their imagination?

Chimes

This last week I bought Woodstock's (company name) Tibetan prayer chimes, seen left. I love the sound and resonance from them and now sit outside my office window under an eave protected from the fierce winds from the north and west which we often experience and chimes gently in southwest winds over the wall a few feet away.

This means they don't chime too much or too often and always fade with their beautiful resonance. They'll be quiet for a while, even a long spell, and then with a slight breeze, their quiet sounds resonant like they're enveloping the world around you and all you hear are the sounds.

They have a quiet way of gently being there during the night to share your restful sleep. And even in a strong wind, they barely move, just enought to softly chime.

The tag which explains the chimes reads as follows:

"The enchanting sounds of this chime take the listener on a musical journey across the landscape of time. It is tuned to the five tones that make sup the principal motif of a work by the great Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Commissioned for the Canadian group NEXUS and the Boston Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Carnigie Hall, From me flows what you call Time features two large custom sets of Woodstock Chime. The chimes are suspended above the audience and activated by colored ribbons - representing Tibetan prayer flags - that extend from the chimes to the performer on the stage."

This is the music notes of the chime.

A portion of the sale of the chimes goes to support the Tibet House US.

God

Why do you argue I can't prove there isn't a God when you can't prove there is one? Simply citing a book, which hasn't been proven to be historically accurate, correct or true, isn't proof of God, only the words of men who want others to believe there is a God.

So, can either be proven? Is the absence of proof of one side proof of the other side? Or is the absence of proof means what it is, neither side can be proven, only believed? And assuming our believe is proof isn't proof, isn't reality, or anything but our imagination and desire to believe it.

So, God is still relative, if God exists or not. And nothing can prove or disprove it.

Least & Most

What we least want and most fear, growing old. And not just growing old, but growing old alone and not graciously. In the end, however, there is nothing else, growing old is just what it is, getting old. Growing with age is optional. Our choice if we have the opportunity. What else is there?

A Thought

Read this in passing, "Nothing like being stabbed by a warm, fuzzy feeling."

Content & Context

Context is what give content relevance. Without context, content is just itself. With context, content has substance and meaning in relation to itself and everything else.

Content is a stranger standing on a busy corner. Context is a stranger standing on a busy corner in a large city at the end of the business day feeling overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds, being pushed by the mass of people, and wondering what to do and where to go next.

Content is the stranger. Context is what is happening around him and involving him to think, decide and act. Context gives the stranger the moments to be among everything and still be one to himself.

Without context the stranger is just a person somewhere. Context makes the stranger relevant in the world.

Position

The importance of a position isn't so much the position itself, but the character of the person in the position. One should never mistake the position for the person and a person should never mistake his importance for the position.

What Matters

It's not what you promise to do that matters, it's what you actually do that counts.

Mindful Geography

"Stand in your own space and know you are there."
                                                         - anonymous
Know you are there in body and mind, know you are there in the space around you, and know you are there in the whole of all of the space in that moment of time. And then in the next moment of time.

Until you don't know the difference between you, the space and everything else at the moment. And then you will know.

Failure

Failure is the success of learning and knowing what does not work. Failure is discovering for that moment, those circumstance, that situation, or those events what you thought and tried didn't work. That alone is a success.

A Thought

A biblical scholar once said in an interview, "The Bible is the best work of historical fiction ever written." Of course, he was referring to the fact it was written by men and then translated and rewritten by men over the millenia since the first edition was published.

The scholar said the Bible isn't the "word of God", but the word in the name of God understood and interpreted by men, and however devout and dedicated they were and are today, it's still their words and work, not God's. And their Bible, not God's.

Something we should remember when we hear people speak, and especially preach, about the Bible as the word of God. It's not. It's the words of the men who wrote the Bible, they're simply using his name for theirs in the name of God. Nothing more, and not God's.

Caring or Not

When people say they do not care, it's often because they don't know. The problem is trying to distinguish if they don't care because they don't know or they know and just really don't care. The former deserve information, the latter deserve questions, the difference between what and why.

History

History is best remembered as a fuzzy memory than truthfully. Reality is harder to accept in hindsight, especially when we're involved. We like to remember the good than the bad for anyone, as we would others want to remember us. It's the sadness we live with and the happiness we want.

Obvious Thought

Every day you wake up, you're one day closer to your death. How will you spend this day realizing looking back you had the chance to do what you wanted and not what you did?

What Does You In

In the end what catches up with you are time, age, evolution and genetics. You can escape all the rest, or not as disease, illness, accident, violence, risk, etc. can find you, but not those. They are inevitable to each and everyone of us, they are what always does us in.

A Sad Memory

The emotional weight of sad memory is nothing on the mind and infinite on the heart. It's the baggage we carry which we don't feel the weight until it becomes a conscious thought, and then it's heavier than we can ever know. It is a weight without measure and a weight without limits. And still we carry it because it is our memory.

A Liar

You can not argue with a liar and expect to win the argument, because you can't argue a lie, only the truth can, and you can't change the liar unless they want to change and they will continue to believe and espouse their lies as the truth, which you can't argue because you can't argue a lie.

A lie is what it is, a lie. It's nothing else and nothing can prove a lie exists except the person who believes it and espouses it. And we all now why you can't argue with a liar. A liar will deny the truth, distort the facts and excuse reality to believe their lies. It's all they know. They are deaf, dumb and blind to anything else, and why you can't argue with them.

A Jar

When things in your life seem, almost too much to handle,
When 24 Hours in a day is not enough,
Remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured
them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor, as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.’

The golf balls are the important things - family,
children, health, Friends, and Favorite passions –
Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else —The small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ He continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.’
The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So…

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

‘Take care of the golf balls first —
The things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled, ‘I’m glad you asked’, he said.

‘It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem,
There’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.’
Perfection. Philosophy for the win.

Source: Unknown, found on reblog Websites.

Tomorrow

When tomorrow becomes yesterday, what will you tell yourself what you had planned and didn't do? What you told yourself you would do and didn't? What you hoped would you would accomplish and didn't? What you wanted to see for yourself which didn't happen?

What words will you use? What words will you want to hear? What words will you hear and accept? What will you do then? What will you tell yourself again about tomorrow again?

Life

Go where the road leads you and keep your mind open to anything, but always follow your heart, especially where there is no road going where you want to go, for there all you will have is your heart to guide you. Your mind will follow if it's true and right.

Someone

Do not flatter someone if you do not mean it. Do not compliment someone if it is not true. For if you flatter or compliment someone and they know you do not mean it or it is not true, then they will not trust your words. And then where will you be without their trust and what would you say since they do not trust you?

Been There Before

I thought. I thought. For a long time I thought some more. And in the end when I thought I was right, I thought wrong and was wrong. Thinking alone is the old adage about repeating the same experiment and expecting different results. Just thinking doesn't make it right if in the end we still thought and are wrong.

Lost

I'm not lost, I just don't know where I am, outside of the obvious here and now.

Somewhere

We don't always know where we're going, but we always know it's somewhere.

Our Youth

The problem with our youth, it's short-lived and often wasted, and only when we're old do we realize it.

Change

Never change for anyone except yourself. Never ask anyone to change except yourself. Never want to change unless you want to change.

A Champion

A champion has confidence, not arrogance. Arrogance belongs to self-centered people who want to be respected but don't demonstrate the character of a champion to earn, let alone deserve, it. They may get the title but it's an empty one as everyone sees and knows they aren't a champion, just a wanna be wrapped in their own arrogance.

Youth and Age

We all get old, if we live that long, but we should never lose the memory of our youth, it is what made us who we are when we get old.

Diversity

Challenge is found in diversity. Ingenuity comes from diversity. Answers and solutions come from diversity. And diversity comes from people. In diversity is the world, and everything it contains. Seek diversity to find everything else to make you a diverse person.

People

Don't surround yourself with only like-minded people, it only serves to reinforce your view of things making your view of the world smaller. Always surround yourself with people of diverse experience and view to make your world the largest it can be, to fully see, know and understand the all of the world.

A Lie

You can't deny a lie. By its very nature a lie is a false statement so you can't confirm it's a lie or deny it's not a lie. A lie is itself a lie, and nothing can or should be said, except, if necessary, to only acknowledge the reality of what it is, a lie.

Go

Go in life where your feet take you and your eyes find interesting. Go where you mind finds curious and your heart finds love. Go where you become whole.

Life and Living

Life is not optional, it's given. Living, however, is optional.

A Blank Page

So what would you write or draw?

Words

It is not the volume or quantity of words spoken that matters, it is their content that matters.

Ideology

Ideology is only good when it is good.

Things You Do Not Do

Seeing a photograph got me to thinking about things you do not do in life, so I decided to start an on-going list I'll update now and then, when the thought strikes enough to express it. And so I'll begin.

Things you do not do in life
1.-- Do not follow a septic tank truck in the afternoon. It's obviously finished for the day and going back to the office.

2.-- Never lean back an a chair you've never sat in before. Balance is always a tentative thing, especially your own.

A Life Story

We were born. We live. And we die.

We are told it's what's in between the birth and death that matters, how we live. But does it really matter? Or does it only matter because we want it to matter? Or are we just another person in the species of humans who were born, lived and then died, and are now forgotten?

We think we are unique and individual, but aren't we just like everyone else? Isn't our story the same as all those before? Summarized in eight words? The same story as the 100 billion people before us and the 7 billion here today?

Meaning

"The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves." - Alan Watts

In our being and doing we forget we are alive and who we are because of happenstance and random chance. We let our beliefs, our ideals, our values and our goals determine our existence and meaning for being here, when in the end, it's simply our existence that matters.

White Crayon

If you could express yourself with a white crayon on a sheet of white paper. What would you say?

Sunshine

Remember, the sun is always shining, the clouds only hide that fact.

Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind, state of being and a state of doing, better if it's all together.

Beauty & Character

Beauty and character age, and hopefully, into one greater than the two.

Youth

What continually gets old but is always new?

Which Would You Choose

If you could take a drug which made you happy, in a way you've never felt or thought before, let alone was something you could ever achieve, and you had to take it every day to be happy, but that drug also made you physically sick, sick enough to make life miserable for short periods of time, made you angry about yourself and with yourself for taking it, and made you more depressed than when you didn't take it, would you still take it?

A Thought in Passing

The Sun

For there the sun, shining so brightly in the morning sky, only made invisible by the layer of clouds and dampened by the gentle drizzle of the rain. Does the sun shine because of the clouds and rain? Does not the clouds and rain live from the sun and the sun live from the clouds and rain to bring life to everything?

A Lie

A lie is easily seen by the smell of the words spoken.

Success & Failure

The absence of failure does not constitute the presence of success.

Plans

We all have plans about our life, even if we don't think we have them, it's always what we do, follow a plan, but it may be more life's plan than ours. So, the question isn't what is our plan but life's plan for us, and the question isn't what we want with life's plan but what we're asked from it and what we do with it.

Individuality

You can be an individual, just like everybody else. Why not just be yourself?

A Good Idea

It's not that an idea may be good at the start, as we know good ideas often don't turn into good ideas when they're turned into something more than an idea, it's when do we decide to abandon the idea as just an idea, interesting but not worth much else than a thought, something for memory's sake than reality's future.

Our Past

No matter how far we run and how much we hide, we wake up to our past every morning. It's always there waiting like the predawn darkness slowly rising in our mind to be what we are. There's no escaping it. There's no denying it. There's no forgetting it. There's nothing we can do about it.

We are because of it, something we don't have the choice except live with it.

Nothing

Nothing is something you can not hide.

God

When God gets frustrated or exasperated with people , does God put his head in his hands and say "Oh me."?

In the End

In the end, it's all each of us has, our humanity, our existence.

Change

I asked her, "Do you think this change is good?" She paused, looked at me and asked, "What will it bring me?" I replied, "I don't know. What do you want it to bring?" She smiled and said, "Then it is good. Now we have questions we can not answer. Before we had answers we could not question."

Death & Naps

Death is a nap we don't wake up from, but we still take naps without knowing if we will wake up.

Spontaneity

"You can't be spontaneous within reason." - Alan Watts

April's Fool

If I told you the world would end, would you consider me a street corner preacher shouting the words of the Bible, someone long out to lunch and forgot the way back to sanity? Would you think I am a doomsday prophesier, predicting the end of the world in some cataclysmic moment? Would you consider me just a kook who believes anything except reality?

But if I said the world would end in a few billion years from now, I'd be an astronomer simplying telling the truth. So, when someone says the world will end, it's a matter of the old saying, "timing is everything." So who's the fool not to believe the world will end some day, just maybe not in our lifetime?

After Our Death

When we die, family and friends will go through our home to sort out everything we left behind, but they'll see our home the moment we last left it, as it was. We don't prepare our home for our death, we live in it and then we die, leaving it as we left, all the untidiness and all.

What will they think of us then? What thoughts will they have about who and what we were? What feeling will they have about what they see, about the life we lived in the privacy of our home? Our privacy open to them, lost to us in our death. Do we stop to think and wonder for a moment when we leave on our live what it looks like to anyone else?

And if we did, would it really matter after we're dead? When we can't change anything anymore?

Seeking Answers

When you're seeking answers it is easier to look out a window than in a mirror.

What It's About

Every conversation should have content and context, because without it, it's just passing the time speaking, and nothing is learned, only empty words shared. It's what the conversation should be for and not what it should be about.

A Conversation

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know.'

"How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know."

"How will you survive?"

"I don't know."

"What do you expect to see?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why you're going?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have any answers?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know anything about your journey?"

"I don't know, which is why I'm going."

"Do you have any questions?"

"That's all I have. Isn't that what life is about?"

The Obvious

Everything is an effect. Everything has an affect.

The question is seeing them.

The answer is understanding them.

Knowledge is learning from them.

Wisdom is growing from them.

And experience is living the wisdom of them.

The Law

The things laws don't have are common sense, logic, understanding, compassion, fairness, equality, and humanity. Makes you wonder what laws are for and about the heart and mind of those who wrote them. And makes you wonder why we have laws, until you realize every religion is worse than laws. No religion has the things laws don't have. It's the one thing they have in common.

Taoism as Cookie

Sometimes I see Taoism as four bites of a cookie. Really. Well, to me anyway.

First, know God is in your heart and your mind. Spend your life seeking to do and be good.

Second, seek answers in the world, not in yourself. Discover the diversity and wholeness of the world and then you will discover the good in your mind and heart.

Third, seek to learn, understand and accept reality and people, and, "Judge not lest ye be judged."

Fourth, explore the layers in parables in the "Tao Te Ching" to discover God within you.

So, a cookie is more than a cookie. It's all in how you see the bites.

Three simple rules

Three simple rules of life and living.

Love your life. It's all you have.

Be passionate about what you do.

Find someone to share your life with.

The rest is just what happens.

War

War should always be the last choice of any nation, and only then when there are no other measures to avoid it. War only benefits the few who argue for it and who profit from it. It is those who fight it and the many who are its victims, there and here, who know and experience the price and cost of it with their lives and their families.

War isn't about patriotism or country. It's about people, the people who live it and live with it. The soldiers who go with the false trust the government and politicians are right and then fight and often die for a cause or reasons they little understand. The people where it's fought who face and fight for their survival every day. The people back home who face the worry of their loved one and experience the pain of those lost or injured in war.

War is what it is, ugly, when winning is never certain and always costly and losing creates revenge and is always costly. And always costly to the many victims; the soldiers and the people. And why it should never be fought unless there is no other choice. It should always be a debate about people, not ideals.

Ideals don't fight wars or live with them. People do. Those who argue for war and those who profit from it rarely, if ever, fight it or experience it as a victim. They know to avoid the realities of it, and leave that to the many; the soldiers and the people. They know to lie about it so others will believe them and fight for them.

War should only be fought by those who argue for it. Maybe the next war will be seen differently, before it's fought.

A Brick Wall

The only sound you hear when talking to a brick wall is your own. Any wonder people on the other side of the wall won't hear each other? To listen, you first must hear them. To understand them, you first must hear them. Discussion only happens when both have their minds open to listen and then understand. Otherwise, it's just the wind talking past each other, through an invisible brick wall.

The Truth

The truth is just what it is, itself. Nothing more than itself.

Life and Death

Why do we have to like someone in death and cherish what they accomplished when we didn't in life because they weren disliked then? Why do we forget someone's personality in death and only cherish what talent they had and gave us? Why do we overlook someone's many flaws and faults in death when in life we found them unlikeable, even hated, for the same characteristics?

I ask because I'm always amazed how we raise someone in death to almost icon status when we didn't in their life. We're often quickly blind and forgetful about anyone's bad, especially the worst, side after their death. And when people raise the issue about them, they're often verbally pummelled for criticizing the dead.

They didn't change, we did. They were who they were in life and death doesn't change anything beyond them being dead. It doesn't change who they were or their life. Yet, we love to be kind, if not totally forgetful. And we hate their detractors for being honest and truthful about them while making excuses for those same qualities in the them.

If you didn't like someone when they were alive, why should be like them when they're dead? Why should we think about them any different in life and in death? Is is human nature or just maybe we do this because we want the same when we die?

Truth and Lies

One person telling the truth is worth more than all the people shouting lies, but those shouting lies gets the attention, so we must always learn to focus on the content of the words, their truthfullness, and not on the person or their words declaring the number of voices or the loudness of their voice.

While the many voices of lies will drown the one telling the truth, the truth will prevail and the many be shown to be liars.

The Obvious

Some thoughts on the obvious.

What do we all get? Older. Unless of course, something else happens along the way, like death.

What we try to leave behind in our life will always follow us, a permanent shadow in our memory.

What we think is resolved is never resolved. Nothing is ever resolved, just changed to be different.

Death is relative. Some people postpone it until the end of their life, and some live it to the end of their life.

Life is also relative. Relative to the life lived.

There are always choices. It's what makes us a thinking person, knowing we always have those choices.

God is everything and nothing. God exists but doesn't exist. God is what we imagine, and nothing else.

Always write your life in pencil, it's easier to change for the better. Others will use pens.

Judgement in hindsight is handy, but only looking in hindsight. Foresight requires imagination and judgement.

Being and doing are one of the same, and neither can be nothing for they are each always something.

Presences and absence are one of the same view, just different perspectives.

Reality

Reality is ugly and messy, often overwhelming and frought with confusion and contradictions. Nothing is clear and everything is a meld from the most sublime to the most profane. Nothing is separate from anything else and everything is part of the whole of reality, connected, related and intermixed with everything else.

It's far easier to forget it and live in a simple fantasy where everything is neat and clean. It allows us to sleep, deceived by our own intentional blindness of the vast richness of reality. It is easier to avoid understanding than to attempt to understand with the possibility of becoming a greater person.

Simplicity is always the easier choice and fantasy the safer place because it frees us of the reality of the world.

The Zen of a Small Tree

I bought a Grand Fir seedling last fall and put it in its own pot until next spring where I would repot it somewhere else or keep it there if it hadn't grown enough. This morning after the Puget Sound got 8-12" of snow overnight, if you got close you could hear the sound of Zen meditation, "I am a tree. I am a tree. I really am a tree." and then you heard the faint sound of the song "To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season..."

Taoism teaches you to be open to the many small things in life, which give you an opportunity to see the world differently and anew. Even a seedling can teach us the power of being.

Never Confuse the Two

From The New Oxford American Dictionary

Disinterest -

1.-- noun, the state of not being influenced by personal involvement in something; impartiality: I do not claim any scholarly disinterest with this book.

2.-- noun, lack of interest in something: he chided Dennis for his disinterest in anything that is not his own idea.

Dislike -

1.-- verb, feel distaste for or hostility toward: he was not distressed by the death of a man he had always disliked.

2.-- noun, (a) feeling of distaste or hostility: despite her dislike of publicity, she was quite a celebrated figure | they had taken a dislike to each other., (b) a thing to which one feels aversion: I know all his likes and dislikes.

When discussing an issue, always remember the two and never think a person's disinterest is dislike. When someone says, "I don't care about ...", it may be that they don't really care one way or the other about it, and not have a dislike for it.

Thoughts on Memory

I had some thoughts on the walk home from town this morning. It's a 6+ mile roundtrip walk, which I do 4-5 days a week now, sometimes for the exercise and sometimes for the stores in town and the cafe for the reward. Today's walk was during the snow storm that is present in the Puget Sound until Thursday.

I'm always amzed how falling snow dampens sounds. There were several places on the walk I stopped and couldn't hear anything beside myself. And I loved watching the falling snow, heavy at times, floating down to stick to everything, to be surrounded by all the snow and watching the world turn white.

Anyway, I often let my mind wander on these walks and this is what I thought. Nothing original or new, just moments of thoughts on memory.

I don't have a short memory. It's just takes me longer to remember.

I don't forget things. I just don't remember everything everyone else thinks is important.

I'm not slow thinker. I'm just not as fast as other people.

A Noise

I thought I heard something in my sleep, but alas, it was only the silence of the night.

Reading Newspapers

I read 3-5 newspapers 3-4 days a week, but some days I wait until after a nap to read them. I do this because I've learned reading newspapers half awake is better than being totally awake, it dulls the anger at the stupidity in the world caused by people not caring, only wanting, or worse demanding. Half awake means I don't want to hurt them, I only want to teach them.