I am laying down the piano.
Its voices are cords knotted on my thin frame.
Showing posts with label Brainpickings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brainpickings. Show all posts
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
№ 201. Thursday Book Find
Happiness. Birth. Sadness. Death. Suffering. Love. Comfort. Indifference. Fall. Weakness. Redemption. Strength.
All the invisible stuff that our so-called life is made of. Do these metaphysical realities somehow explain the mass of the universe?
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| Happy Feet are well worn by walking. July 2015 Taal Food and Heritage Tour. |
All the invisible stuff that our so-called life is made of. Do these metaphysical realities somehow explain the mass of the universe?
Friday, January 24, 2014
№ 154. The Question Mark
What is the shape of a curious mind?
Does it follow the curves of riddles as they flow out of our thoughts? As we seek out the strings of answers, do we not enter labyrinths with minotaurs ready to engage us in mortal combats? True, ignorance dies a thousand deaths and we gain iotas of neural networks. We also arrive at gardens rife with serpents and seeds of doubts. Seeds that grow into blasphemy, unorthodoxy and many meta-institutional offsprings.
The apple from the tree which was forbidden may just really be a fig of infinite curiosity that doesn't end with a wealth of answers. Answers are just a foretaste of the wellsprings of creation that lay inexhaustible underneath. As the multiverses expand, the supply of energy and matter and the inter-relationships that enrich the whole soup deepen in plenitude.
Mortality which was the price of disobedience is really the death of innocent, blind obedience. To disobey means to take a bite, despite the fiat, and move on for other quests and grow in the process. To disobey is to wander off and wonder where the lay of the land is demarcated between the knowns and unknowns. Reason and faith are really aspects of single reality. To be religious is to be curious and to ask questions. To disobey means to search for meaning, to fall from grace---that flat landscape of medieval earth, and to realize unending horizons of a sphere. Augustine, that bishop who struggled with inner demons, celebrated our happy fault which gained for us redemption.
This article from Brain Pickings is a gem as we are on the cusp of the lunar new year. To know is to experience the burning bush and spark an epiphany:
"This wonder at existence is the condition for an authentic encounter with things and opens up the possibility of knowledge. . . . This is a wonder that does not stop at an aesthetic sentiment, is not reduced to a momentary curiosity, but is the beginning of a process, kindling the desire to enter into relationship with the world, to get to know it."
Does it follow the curves of riddles as they flow out of our thoughts? As we seek out the strings of answers, do we not enter labyrinths with minotaurs ready to engage us in mortal combats? True, ignorance dies a thousand deaths and we gain iotas of neural networks. We also arrive at gardens rife with serpents and seeds of doubts. Seeds that grow into blasphemy, unorthodoxy and many meta-institutional offsprings.
The apple from the tree which was forbidden may just really be a fig of infinite curiosity that doesn't end with a wealth of answers. Answers are just a foretaste of the wellsprings of creation that lay inexhaustible underneath. As the multiverses expand, the supply of energy and matter and the inter-relationships that enrich the whole soup deepen in plenitude.
Mortality which was the price of disobedience is really the death of innocent, blind obedience. To disobey means to take a bite, despite the fiat, and move on for other quests and grow in the process. To disobey is to wander off and wonder where the lay of the land is demarcated between the knowns and unknowns. Reason and faith are really aspects of single reality. To be religious is to be curious and to ask questions. To disobey means to search for meaning, to fall from grace---that flat landscape of medieval earth, and to realize unending horizons of a sphere. Augustine, that bishop who struggled with inner demons, celebrated our happy fault which gained for us redemption.
This article from Brain Pickings is a gem as we are on the cusp of the lunar new year. To know is to experience the burning bush and spark an epiphany:
"This wonder at existence is the condition for an authentic encounter with things and opens up the possibility of knowledge. . . . This is a wonder that does not stop at an aesthetic sentiment, is not reduced to a momentary curiosity, but is the beginning of a process, kindling the desire to enter into relationship with the world, to get to know it."
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
№ 112. Friday Find: Dickens's Letter
Here's a Friday find: Charles Dickens's letter to his youngest son.
"My dearest Plorn,
I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation.
What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since." (Brainpickings)
"My dearest Plorn,
I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation.
What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since." (Brainpickings)
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| Synthia Saint James |
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