02 Sep Myopia
When I was 13 I didn't need glasses but marveled at the experience of those who did. I thought people with myopia could see things two ways, with and without glasses. Poor eyesight seemed like a blessing that could lead to interesting insights. This might be the case. With myopia, one realizes they don't know what they are looking at. This arouses curiosity which exercises the mind. A well-exercised mind is fitter. Statistically, people who are myopic have a higher IQ than those who are not. ...
01 Sep Love 9
Love is like light. It can be bent and redirected but can never be broken. The more light that's emitted, the more shines back at us. Without light, we are in a cold dark place. With light, we can connect with everything around us. Light is what we see everywhere but rarely notice....
28 Aug Way Of Way 169
When we focus on the details, we often fail to see the beauty of the whole. A beautiful artwork that's deemed a "fake" becomes less beautiful....
27 Aug Thich Nhat Hanh
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.” “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” “Many people think excitement is happiness...
23 Aug Political Parties
Political parties are like flavors at an ice cream shop. We often busy ourselves deciding which flavor we want without considering whether we're allergic to its ingredients or looking at whether the shop is clean....
18 Aug Peace Pilgrim
Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you.” Our attitude forms our experiences. Peace Pilgrim...
17 Aug Clouds
I see all sorts of animals up in the clouds, their shapes changing as the wind blows. Some are angry some are happy and with some it's hard to read their minds. Only when I climb a distant mountain I get above the clouds and realize the clouds are just clouds....
16 Aug Niccolò Machiavelli
"[S]ince love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved." When others fear us, they don't attack us; thereby fear provides us a certain level of safety. However, fear can turn into aggression as a cornered rat can leap to bite us in the jugular or starving peasants revolt against their king. Love is unconditional. Moreover, those we love we treat as we wish to be treated. Thus, when we are loved, though we may not necessarily be liked, we never need worry of coming into harm's way as a consequent of the actions of someone who loves us. Hence, it is safer to be loved than feared....
15 Aug Democrats Vs Republicans 2
Some years back I was friendly with a man, Everett, the parking attendant in my New York City office building garage. Everett hailed from South Carolina which he left in the late 1950s to serve in the Korean War. After his military service, he lived in Boston for 15 years and then moved to New York City where he was living for 10 years when we met. As he lived in the South before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I was curious what life was like in the South from the perspective of a black man. (Oh, did I forget to mention Everett was black!) Everett said life down South was good in terms of black/white relations. Whites and blacks lived segregated; everyone knew their place and relations were friendly. He never felt uncomfortable with whites. He never felt anyone hated him because he was black until he moved to Boston. In Boston, black people were marginalized and often came in harm's way if they went to white neighborhoods but as service workers. Things got progressively worse when schools were forced to integrate. New York City he found was more friendly to black people but not by much. On occasional trips to visit family in South Carolina, Everett found the good old days no longer as mandated integration disturbed the old social order and tensions were high between whites and blacks. He often wondered whether the idealists pushing for integration were more interested in creating racial conflicts and upsetting the social and political order than peaceful coexistence or whether they had good intentions but no common sense and insights into unintended consequences. Moreover, while integration provided more economic opportunities or high-paying token jobs, Everett felt the cultural collapse of the black community and the economic divisions and related stress that integration created came at too high a cost. That is, as the creation of an integration focused social order required the destruction of an older order, perhaps integration via evolution would have been better than via revolution. I asked Everett what others in his community thought of his views. He said no one took him seriously because he was a Republican....