The option to change our minds

From 'Diary of a Bad Year' [Published 2007] by J.M.Coetzee [Nobel Prize, 2003]

Chapter 01: 'On the origins of the state'

"...It is hardly in our power to change the form of the state and impossible to abolish it because, vis-à-vis the state, we are, precisely, powerless. In the myth of the founding of the state as set down by Thomas Hobbes, our descent into powerlessness was voluntary: in order to escape the violence of internecine warfare without end (reprisal upon reprisal, vengeance upon vengeance, the vendetta), we individually and severally yielded up to the state the right to use physical force (right is might, might is right), thereby entering the realm (the protection) of the law. Those who chose and choose to stay outside the compact become outlaw.

...What the Hobbesian myth of origins does not mention is that the handover of power to the state is irreversible. The option is not open to us to change our minds, to decide that the monopoly on the exercise of force held by the state, codified in the law, is not what we wanted at all, that we would prefer to go back to a state of nature."

Ghetto

Ghetto, by Akon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg31NpBlxH8

These streets remind me of quicksand (quicksand)
When your on it you'll keep goin down (goin down)
And there's no one to hold on too
And there's no one to pull you out
You keep on fallin (falling)
And no one can hear you callin
So you end up self destructing................


Lyrics

Stranger

We die to each other daily.

What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them.

And they have changed since then.

To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes be broken.

We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (1949)

Does more information mean we know less?

Brilliant article, an unusual perspective, contrasts I did not expect at all.

If you want to listen to it rather than read, here it is, just 10 mins: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xb105 ('The Point of View' on BBC iPlayer is a great way to listen to articles - some rest for sore eyes)

A Point of View: Does more information mean we know less?

We pay a price for all the information we consume these days - and it's knowing less, says Alain de Botton.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12191104

'

"...For example, we are enticed to go to the cinema to see a newly released film, which ends up moving us to an exquisite pitch of sensitivity, sorrow and excitement. We leave the theatre vowing to reconsider our entire lives in light of the values shown on screen, and to purge ourselves of our decadence and haste.

And yet by the following evening, after a day of meetings and aggravations, our cinematic experience is well on its way towards obliteration. Just like so much else which once impressed us, but which we soon enough came to discard - the majesty of the ruins of Ephesus, the view from Mount Sinai, that poetry recital in Edinburgh, the feelings we had after putting down Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich."

"...The need to diet, well accepted in relation to food, should be brought to bear on our relation to knowledge, people, and ideas. Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting."

Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi Live Performance - Ashitaka sekki from Mononoke


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtPm5GiJ_iM&feature=related

Fast Enough

The Rider

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Walk away

And in the end, your little table-rectangle of life, after the crowd has gone away, after the jokes are over.

What is the measure of our lives? What we own? What we contribute? The number of people who call to ask how we are? Who want to hear our stories? Who want us to be part of their lives?
Or is it just the weight of the bhikshu's begging bowl you bear after you finally learn to walk away?

Apoptosis

"Apoptosis is the process of programmed cell death (PCD) that may occur in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death. These changes include blebbing, loss of cell membrane asymmetry and attachment, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, chromatin condensation, and chromosomal DNA fragmentation."

"Neuroimaging studies of individuals with bipolar disorder or other mood disorders also suggest evidence of cell loss in these same brain regions. Thus, a suggested cause of bipolar disorder is abnormal programmed cell death, or apoptosis, in critical brain circuitry that regulates emotion."

There, rest. No more suffering for you.

Kaddish
by Allen Ginsberg

It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my
shoulder. Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office
buildings shouldering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the
sky an instant — and the sky above — an old blue place.

or down the Avenue to the South, to – as I walked toward the Lower
East Side – where you walked 50 years ago, little girl – from
Russia, eating the first poisonous tomatoes of America – frightened
on the dock –

then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what? – toward
Newark
toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned
ice cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards –
Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching
school, and learning to be mad, in a dream – what is this life?...

Ai! ai! we do worse! We are in a fix! And you're out, Death let you out.
Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with
God, done with the path thru it – Done with yourself at last—
Pure – Black to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all—
before the world—

There, rest. No more suffering for you. I know where you've gone, it's
good.
.................................................

Listen to his poems here: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ginsberg.php

"Kaddish is a prayer found in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy different versions of the Kaddish are used functionally as separators between sections of the service. The term "Kaddish" is often used to refer specifically to "The Mourners' Kaddish", said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer services as well as at funerals and memorials. When mention is made of "saying Kaddish", this unambiguously denotes the rituals of mourning."

Poem written in the street on a rainy evening

Everything I lost was found again
I tasted wine in my mouth
My heart was like a firefly; it moved
Through the darkest objects laughing

There were enough reasons why this was happening
But I never stopped to think about them
I could have said it was your face,
Could have said I’d drunk something idiotic,

But no one reason was sufficient
No one reason was relevant;
My joy was gobbled up by dull surroundings
But there was enough of it

A feast was spread; a world
Was suddenly made edible
And there was forever to taste it........

Brian Patten

The debasement of language

.......There is the curious notion that freedom is somehow synonymous with gutter jargon. At one time people who worked in the arts would boast to one another about their ability to communicate ideas that attacked social injustice and brutality. Now some of them seem to feel that they have struck a blow for humanity if only they can use enough four-letter words...........

The debasement of language not only reflects but also produces a retreat from civility. The slightest disagreement has become an occasion for violent reactions. Television has educated an entire generation of Americans to believe that the normal way of reacting to a slight is by punching someone in the face”.

Norman Cousins
Editor, “Saturday Review”

Aur woh hasthé hué kaha....

Tum us ped ké tharah ho
Kitaab mein chapi
Badalté mausam sé békhabar....

.....You’re like a tree
That’s printed in a book
It cannot feel the changing seasons...

From “Bhasha ki Raat”

* * * * * * * *

......Aur woh hasthé hué kaha
Sach kahoon Babuji
Mere nigah mein
Na koyi chhota hai
Na koyi bada hai
Har aadmi ek jodi jootha hai
Jo méré samné maramath ke liyé khada hai...

.....And laughing, he said,
To tell you the truth, sir,
In my eyes
There’s no one who is small
And no one who is great
To me every man is a pair of shoes
Who stands before me for repairs......

From “Mochiram” (The Cobbler)
Sudama Pandé (Dhoomil)

(Dhoomil is his pen name, which he coined from “Dhool mé mila hua aadmi”

Douglas Adams: Parrots, the Universe, and Everything

Best talk I've ever heard in my life.

"Blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn ... Douglas Adams' close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too -- in a University of California talk that sparkles with his trademark satiric wit."

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/douglas_adams_parrots_the_universe_and_everything.html

Andrew Bird

When I wake up
In the morning
I pour the coffee
I read the paper
Then I slowly
And so softly
do the dishes
feed the fishes
sing me happy birthday
like it's gonna be your last one
here on earth

...........................................................

you made yourself invulnerable
no one can break your heart
so you wear it down
and you wring it out
and you break it yourself

...........................................................

Andrew Bird's one-man orchestra of the imagination, on TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_bird_s_one_man_orchestra_of_the_imagination.html

On MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/andrewbird

We're only passing through

In A Café
by Garrison Keillor

When Love is lost, the laughter's good and gone,
The sun sinks down, the heavy fog rolls in,
Nothing is left to say and you know that no good
Will ever come of this,
Life will never again be miraculous.

Tall dark woman in the café, I see
How the tears glitter in your blue eyes.
You drink black coffee for bravery
And weep onto the front page of the Times.

I had a love once too who now is gone, is
gone, she's gone. The waves roll along
The coast, the sweet summer rain blows in.

If I knew you, I'd sit by your side and sing:
This world is not our home, we're only passing through.