Tag Archives: quotes

Free Play Motley Crew

the bop

the bop

the catch

the catch

the crew

the crew


 

Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment. Jean Baudrillard

Blue-Cap-540sm

Leave a Comment

Filed under play

Liberty As Figment

Liberty As Figmet

ARK; S.Calhoun 2011

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death… We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere.

To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. — Michel de Montaigne

Leave a Comment

Filed under visual experiments, my art

Sheep In Sheep’s Clothing

Thinking modern day Fabians are dangerous plotters is akin to believing we’d be doomed should the YWCA and WMCA join forces.

(from the video) Communitarianism centers around the belief that individualism is to be relinquished for the “greater good” of the state. Such a system would be fascistic at its core and administered through a form of scientific socialism.

This can be seen especially with the United Nation’s Agenda 21 program, that would set international requirements for how people must live, learn, eat, travel, and communicate. This has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with control.

The terrifying duo of “must” and “control” evoke–for some–the Fabians! Wow.

“And hereby thou wilt honour thy Father and thy Mother : Thy Father, which is the spirit of community, that made all and that dwells in all. Thy Mother, which is the Earth, that brought us all forth: That as a true Mother, loves all her children. Therefore do not hinder the Mother Earth from giving all her children suck, by thy Inclosing into particular hands, and holding up that cursed Bondage of Inclosure by thy Power.” Gerrard WInstanley

(If you ask me what my political persuasion is, I might tell you: “I’m a digger and a Fabian.” This is sort of a kiss-off answer in that I would be surprised were the questioner to then respond in a knowing manner. I would also be delighted.)

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Denying the “Other”

The present day shows with appalling clarity how little able people are to let the other man’s argument count, although this capacity is a fundamental and indispensable condition for any human community. Everyone who proposes to come to terms with himself must reckon with this basic problem. For, to the degree that he does not admit the validity of the other person, he denies the “other” within himself the right to exist – and vice versa. The capacity for inner dialogue is a touchstone for outer objectivity.
Carl G. Jung The Practice of Psychotherapy CW 16


But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth, if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. It is necessary to, consider separately these two hypotheses, each of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can never he sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

First, the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.

Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgement, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable.
Continue reading

Leave a Comment

Filed under analytic(al) psychology

TO SET IN STONE

Carried over from the Hoon Loops.

Planning concerns man’s efforts to make the future in his own image. If he loses control of his own destiny, he fears being cast into the abyss. Alone and afraid, man is at the mercy of strange and unpredictable forces, so he takes whatever comfort he can by challenging the fates. He shouts his plans into the storms of life. Even if all he hears is his own voice, he is no longer alone. To abandon his faith in planning would unleash the terror locked in him.

A. Wildavsky
If Planning Is Everything, Maybe It¹s Nothing
Policy Science No. 4, 1973

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

NOVEL FLUX

Another carry over.

This Dionysian quality of spirit confronts and questions all human certainties. Human reality instead becomes a flux of images and constructions that need continuous reappraisal. His inherent qualities of good and bad, of creativity and destruction, of life and death challenge the edge of alertness in order to pursue life in its full dimension.

Mia Nijsmans
A Dionysian Way to Organizational Effectiveness, in Psyche At Work;
Chiron 1994

If an organization is narrow in the images that it directs toward its own actions, then when it examines what it has said, it will see only bland displays. This means in turn that the organization won’t be able to make much interesting sense of what’s going on or of its place in it. That’s not a trivial outcome, because the kind of sense that an organization makes of its thoughts and of itself has an effect on its ability to deal with change. An organization that continually sees itself in novel images, images that are permeated with diverse skills and sensitivities, thereby is equipped to deal with altered surroundings when they appear.

Karl Weick
The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed.,
McGraw-Hill 1979

Leave a Comment

Filed under Karl Weick

BLUE SHADOW

*Fool, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught nations war–founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine, and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting–such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existance headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand has warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization. – Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

coyote

One day Coyote noticed it was very quiet. “I wonder where all the animals have gone,” he thought. “I think I’ll go look for them.” He searched for his friends every-where, in the mountains, theforest, and near the rivers, but no one was around. Tired andready to give up, Coyote sat down to rest.

“Lima, lima, lima,”shrieked a voice from below him.It was Meadowlark. Because Coyote hadn’t been paying attention, he had sat down upon the poor bird and broken her leg. She was very angry, but Coyote made her a deal to calm her down.

“I will make you a new strong leg out of wood if you tell me where everyone went.”

The Meadowlark agreed.“Everybody has been swallowed up by a ferocious monster,” she said and then she gave Coyote directions to where the beast was last seen. After fixing the bird’s leg, Coyote packed his fire-making supplies and some knives and setout to find the monster. When he arrived where Meadowlark had directed him, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Before him was a gigantic monster lying on his belly. The creature was so big that his back reached as high as the nearby mountains. Coyote approached the great beast fearlessly, hoping it would open its giant mouth and swallow him up. But the monster just lay there and looked at him suspiciously. Coyote had a reputation as a troublemaker and the monster didn’t want to be tricked.

Coyote tried a different plan. He walked up to the fearsome creature with a sad look on his face.

“Help me,” he asked the beast. “I am lonely. You have swallowed all the animals and now I have no one to talk with. Please eat me too, so I can be with my friends.”

Coyote was so sincere that he convinced themonster that he was telling the truth. The beast opened up his mouth and sucked Coyote down his cavernous throat.

Once inside, Coyote set immediately to work. He called for all the animals who were trapped inside to help him start afire and then he began to cut away at the monster’s heart. When thebeast saw the smoke coming from his belly and felt the great pain in his chest, he knew that Coyote had tricked him, but by then, it was too late. Coyote finished slicing out the monster’s heart and all of the animals were free. In celebration of the escape, Coyote carved up the body of the great monster. Whenever he sliced off a piece, he would throw it far away in a different direction. Wherever these pieces landed, they turned into the human tribes that inhabit the Earth today.

When Coyote was satisfied that he was finished, he turned to the other animals to show them what he had done. Everyone was very thankful of Coyote’s rescue, but Fox noticed a problem.

“Friend Coyote,” he said. “You have done a good job making humans, but you have created all these people far away from here. You forgot to make a tribe where we are standing.”

Fox was right. Coyote thought hard and then came up with an idea. He washed the monster’s blood from his hands and let the drops sprinkle on the ground. This blood turned into the Nez Perce tribe.

from idahohistory.net

Leave a Comment

Filed under adult learning, experiential learning

DEEP COUNTRY

[Patriotism] I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power—-to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. These are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. –Adlai Stevenson

Leave a Comment

Filed under experiential learning

MOMENT TO NOTICE

…been busy taking care of business with both mother and partner recovering from major surgeries. Everything is looking good. perhaps ironically my hermetic phase is pulled a bit by the demands but, as always, knowing in the final analysis very little about much at all, at the beginning of the day one can choose to serve. My insight is that most demands people come up with aren’t very demanding.

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leave a Comment

Filed under adult learning

EXPERIMENT!

If you are not pursuing some damn dream and then reinventing yourself regularly, assiduously, you’re going to fail. Period. — If you are not growing today, if you can’t demonstrably say at the end of the year I have learned some new stuff and tried some new stuff, then you’ve fallen back.And there just isn’t room, it would seem to me, in a developed-country economy, for people who are standing still.

Tom Peters
quoted in Tom Peters and the Healthy Corporation
Psychology Today; May-April 1993

Leave a Comment

Filed under experiential learning

SO ASK, ALREADY

“I come to life and enjoy myself only when I am respectfully asked questions about my work.” –Psychologist Abraham Maslow

Leave a Comment

Filed under psychology

WHAT ASSURANCE HAVE WE?

Since a wise man can be mistaken, and a hundred men, and many nations, yes, and human nature is mistaken for many centuries about this or that, what assurance have we that sometimes it stops being mistaken, and in this century it is not making a mistake? –Montaigne

Leave a Comment

Filed under philosophy

POINT OF SELF-ARTISTRY

The drive to share the truth that (s)he sees is the heart’s blood of every creator’s vision.–Creativity researcher, John Briggs

Leave a Comment

Filed under creative captures

OLDEST SCHOOL

My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.
— Margaret Mead

The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.
— Paul Feyerabend

Hat tip to: afewlinesmore.blogspot.com, not active but still around.

Leave a Comment

Filed under history

QUOTE-EPICTETUS

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
-Epictetus

Leave a Comment

Filed under adult learning

WHAT BELONGS

What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. –Chief Seattle

Leave a Comment

Filed under history

FIVESOME

…believe but be scientific; be mystical without mystification…

Krassner. “My only sacred cow is I have no sacred cows.”

Lilly. “My beliefs are unbelievable.”

Tolle. “I’ve met several Zen masters, all of them are cats”

unknown. Everything we think we know only serves to obscure our unknown ignorance. (Found as part of the constructivist ‘prayer’)

Alice O. Howell Keep and open mind and carry a good crap detector.

Leave a Comment

Filed under humor

IN THE NOWHERE THAT YOU CAME FROM

If you could give up tricks and cleverness, this would be the cleverest trick!

Rumi was one of the great lanterns of experiential spirituality and Sufism. Today, not only is Rumi the most read poet in the world, his work imbues many spiritual ‘schools’ with important psychological, esoteric and yogic principles and methods.

Who was Rumi? What is the Mevlevi Order? For one thing, it’s not one order today. Here are portals to sites in Turkey, Mevlana.com, and the United States, The Threshold Society. Many fine web sites are maintained on behalf of Rumi’s continuing influence, ranging from examples of orthodox and heterodox views. Many familiar with his poetry will know the versions of Coleman Barks and John Moyne. There are a many other sources of his poetry on the web, including Khamush.com

Divan e-Shamsa & Mathnavi (Masnavi i Ma’navi ) @rumionfire Blissbat Zara Houshmand. Oneworld-publications maintains a recommended listing of links, as does Khamush. Stan Tenen’s schematic perspective on the Sema, the Mevlevi ritual dance is interesting. Finally, Omphaloskepsis offers many downloads of important Sufi literature.

Leave a Comment

Filed under sufism

ABSENCE

We don’t determine music,
The music determines us;
We only follow it
To the end of our life:
Then it goes on without us.

Steve Lacy

No doubt the genius player is shocking angels right now with single notes.

Leave a Comment

Filed under music