The Morningstar Option

There is method in't

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 17:31:00 +0000

What defines success? I have spend most of my life defining it based on how I perceive success; by measuring myself in comparison to those that I think are winners in life. I often wonder where does the idea of success comes from; what shapes it and I see that the magnitude of variables is too immense. Understanding where we came from is akin to trying to drive through a blizzard with your eyes closed; you probably going to crash and burn. We are not only the code in our genes, but also how those loose directives interact with countless events of chance. Is that the answer to the question? We arose from chance. From the infinitely small probability of this precise set of alleles from two people who in spite of all improbability met and reproduced. Combine that with the impossible probability of the sets of events, people, colours, smells, love, heart-break, delight, and pain that randomly populated this intricate game of bingo we call life. This lottery who in the end awards winners and losers with the same prize. Life is, as hard is it may be to face it, meaningless, and yet that does not mean it has to remain meaningless. We define success, whether we know or not, whether we suffer or not chasing it. Gliding on the ripples of the cast of the dice, we create and destroy; we collect symbols that we forge into truths; and truths that fall apart in face of another wave. Like Alice chasing the Red queen, I raced after the dream that wasn't a dream, but an amalgamation of expectations. Some were my own, some were from the branches of the tree of old; the ever growing path that follows the tiny movements of gas particles across space. And as I stepped here at one of the many crossroads of the journey; I still question if I ever really made a decision for myself and in face of an almost unbearable loneliness I see scattered like stars in the sky the solitude of others. If these choices are ours or not; if we can really define ourselves in face of this monumental force of a feather that gently pulls you up and down; that I don't know. What I know is that I hope; I hope that I can sail these winds towards Ithaca, and if not, I, as you, will die trying.

Time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:32:00 +0000

A photo and a reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:24:00 +0000

It is naive to believe that education alone can eradicate ignorance and prejudice. Only egalitarian dialogue can overcome the power relationships of our society. Ignorance is not lack of knowledge, it is a lack of equality.

Listening to Rolling in the Deep - Adele

TOP 5 Reasons

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:55:00 +0000

Why I don't trust anything posted on Facebook:

1) Nothing in life is free and there is always a catch. Beware of Costco cards, my mother always said.

2) Simple is good. Too simple is either pretentious, condescending or patronizing, if not all 3.

3) Humans (me included) are lazy, fond of short-cuts and easy answers.

4) Illusions are necessary. (?) What would Chomsky say?

5) People are ignorant. At least statistically speaking, even though some people are not. Before you get offended, ignorant comes from the verb to ignore. Most people prefer to ignore that which does not please them.

What I learned from Kony 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Check your facts before re-posting. Trust me, it works wonders for you and specially for me.

A little of the other side of the whole Kony 2012 hysteria:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/201231432421227462.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201231284336601364.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/stop-kony-screening-tour-cancelled-after-ugandans-react-with-outrage/article2370125/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_content=2370125&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

I am not even saying that you should or should not support it, but listen to the other side, for me, please?

Listening to Amelia Curran

Echos of Malcon X among waste paper

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:15:00 +0000

My fight is for all the oppressed people to become relevant. - Laíssa Sobral, cooperative garbage collector, who never liked studying, but made to University so that she can help improving her environment.

Listening to Adriana Calcanhoto

TOP 5 Words I can't spell correctly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:27:00 +0000

In order of annoyance:

1) Environment - a "n" should never be followed by an "m" :)

2) Comparison - I will insist to the end of my days to spell it with "pi"

3) Teeth - Where do all those "e"s go

4) Column - a "m" should never be followed by a "n"

5) no one/someone - Why couldn't they both be together or both separated?

Listening to Adriana Calcanhoto

Sons of Potugal

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:19:00 +0000

We were all born of Portugal
land of my fathers
We all got the red in our blood from
the mixture of the bark that gives cork
and the crimson soil of the Alentejo.

We are all sons of Portugal
We, the expatriated
bastard sons and daughters of explorers,
who loved their wives
but could do nothing but lust after
the radiant nakedness in the red tones
of the new land.

We are not Portuguese
by the blessing of our place of birth
still we are progeny, maybe unwanted,
of the once empire to be.

To deny Portugal is to deny who we are.
To go beyond the seas
one must go beyond the pain
for it is worth our while
as are souls are as big the Amazon forest
as deep as the Fado.

We are the land of tree,
born to no one,
bastard sons of Portugal.

Listening to Adele

The Butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:16:00 +0000

The Butterfly

Out of the cocoon, it says,
unto the light, out with the old.
On with the new.

If I fly is because I try,
not because of these wings.
These things are just
consequences of dreaming.

If you can't fly
it is not because your wings are tied
but rather because you refuse to try.

Soaring is simple,
you just spread your wings
and fly.

Listening to Amelia Curran

TOP 5 Things I hate about Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:28:00 +0000

1) The absence of the following buttons under status updates and comments: Dislike, This is Stupid, You are Stupid, This is FUCKING stupid and Get a life.

2) Games - To hell with all the -Villes, unless there is one called Hellville.

3) People who complain about the Facebook layout changes - Mark Zunchemberg (or whatever he is called) is out to make money, period. Get over it!

4) The fact that the Facebook notification system is schizophrenic.

5) People who take themselves, their causes and beliefs way to seriously and like their own posts.

Listening to Maggie's Farm - Rage Against the Machine

Selfish

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:45:00 +0000

Loneliness comes from unexpected places, there is so much I want to say, so much I want to tell the world, but I don't know how and I doubt the world is interested. Pain and disappointment often arise from the belief that people's actions are about us, when truth is they are most often about themselves. As the old anecdote said: the selfish is he who thinks more about himself than about me....

In the absence of things to say, I'll let Leonard speak for me, cause he is that much better than I will ever be. Take it off Leonard:

POETRY

GOING HOME

by Leonard CohenJANUARY 23, 2012

I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy bastard

Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him

Even though it isn’t welcome

He will never have the freedom

To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sage, a man of vision

Though he knows he’s really nothing

But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

To where it’s better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

He wants to write a love song

An anthem of forgiving

A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering

A sacrifice recovering

But that isn’t what I want him to complete

I want to make him certain

That he doesn’t have a burden

That he doesn’t need a vision

That he only has permission

To do my instant bidding

That is to SAY what I have told him

To repeat

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

Going home

To where it’s better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy bastard

Living in a suit

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2012/01/23/120123po_poem_cohen#ixzz1naaeGYEX

Listening to you guessed right: Going Home - by Leonard Cohen

Top 5 word misuses that amuse me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:34:00 +0000

In no particular order:

1) Ironic - Blame it on Alanis or maybe she was just the symptom. Check the oatmeal take on this matter
2) Diet - All you eat is a diet, I for example lived on a diet of Ramen Noodles for a while.
3) Cholesterol - Good and Bad cholesterol, really?!!
4) Natural - So y'all tree huggers out there know, cyanide is as natural as lettuce.
5) Irregardless - It is pompous and it is not even a fucking word.

Listening to The Once

Talk about it

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Clara Hughes is, of course, right; we have to talk about it. It may be a little cheesy and a bit sketchy that it is integrated on the Bell ads, but we should talk about it. We should talk about depression, about the dark hours spent in grey places staring at the empty blurred void; blurred by the sobs, the tears and the pain. We should talk about how to reach out and help, but the truth is it is really hard to help. We should talk then of what doesn't help, it doesn't help to treat us like victims. It doesn't help to pity or be sorry. The politically correctness surrounding mental illness that leads to hushed comments by the corners and the avoidance of the "c" word, it doesn't help. We all are crazy. We should talk about how loving is not blindingly accepting nor it is ignoring. We need to talk about openness, because no liar is better at lying as the one who lies to oneself, and we are pros. We need to chat about fighting and fear and how people that suffer from depression need limits, objectives and hopes. We need to hold hands to help us stand and not crutches that prevent us from falling.

Clara is right, like every over-achiver, she has likely felt the pressure and crumbled under it. Let's talk about it, about loving people for real and accepting the challenge of helping, of being the force that helps one rise from the grey dust of the shadow of our minds. And then let's stop talking and start loving.

Listening to Leonard Cohen

Grammys

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:24:00 +0000

My dream Grammy award reception speech:

Adele, after winning 6 Grammys, goes to the podium and says one sentence:

Who's fat now, BITCHES?!

(In my dream she also gives the crowd the middle finger)

Listening to Set Fire to the Rain - by 6 time Grammy winner Adele.

Loss

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:38:00 +0000

Where does this sense of loss comes from?

Not being what you dreamed you would,
you knew you could,
not reaching out to the stars?
From the loneliness of being this
just this, just you
it's all you've got.

The separation from what I want to be
and what I am. It is in the realization
of what you lack,
of all you'll never be
that you lose. From the depths of defeat
is where this sense of loss comes from.

And the universe won't shed a tear for you;
nor will the Gods, not even the souls
that are like you, alone. From the worm hole
of failure, you must raise yourself, like you are, alone.
Like the star you are, we all are, one must shine,
erase the darkness until you burst.

Do not go gently into that supernova,
be as incandescent as you can be
for as long as life allows. This sense of loss
is nothing, not a thing is lost.
Defeat is just another day
as long as you have the will to be bright,
even when other stars outshine you.

Listening to Leonard Cohen

A game of inches

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:30:00 +0000

We all heard the old metaphor: football is a game of inches. Yesterday, the NY Giants had about 40 something yards more of offensive performance than the Patriots, enough for another SuperBowl victory. I would bet that most people are happy with the results, except the Patriots fans and possibly the Colts (i.e. older Manning) fans. Everyone loves the underdog. So here are my thoughts about the game: is was a clash of underdogs. We don't remember anymore, but Tom Brady is also an unlikely hero. Picked way down in the draft when he was a somewhat talented, small QB from a unknown school. Brady rose through the ranks of the NFL QBs, and will likely be put by the side of Montana or Starr as one of the greatest to ever play the game. What did everybody missed about Brady that Bill Billicheck saw? I can't tell for sure, but my guess is: will. The one vital characteristic of great men and women and the hardest one to measure. You can measure accuracy, passing totals, wins, TD/interception rate; but you can't give a number to will. And so some very talented people with great numbers fail and some not so talented people, with ok numbers shine. They have the will to win, to become better, to be the best they can be. I believe that is how Brady went from unknown QB from nowhere to shinning star, which brings me to Eli Manning. Is Eli Manning as talented or even as good as Peyton? Technically, I don't think so. However, because he's lived in the shadows for so long, I think he always has something to prove. To prove your critics wrong takes will. Talent helps, but without will talent is just a bunch of numbers. Why did the Giants won last night? Most people will brake it down to the stats, to the turnovers, to the safety. I will dare a different analysis. The Giants won because they played to prove something, that they could do it again. They had the will to win. Football is a game of inches, maybe so; but winning is a matter of wanting and giving it all you have. To be better, to become better, the best that you possibly can. That is what makes sports such a great part of our lives, the things you can't measure. Hell, that is what makes life exciting! Congratulation to NY Giants, who won as a team that showed the will to be great.

Listening to Fleetwood Mac

Top Five Gene Names

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Every (real) geneticist wants one thing and one thing only... You are thinking: winning the nobel. You are wrong. We want to describe a new gene, so we can give it a clever dorky name and stop referring to it as LOC121222. So here is a list of my top five gene names, since I have not been able to describe my own yet!

1) Sonic - named after Sonic the Hedgehog as it is part of the hedgehog pathway.

2) GRIM - Genes associated with retinol-induced mortality. 'nough said.

3) MAD - Mothers against decapentaplegic. Named for repressing the decapentaplegic gene and a homage to the mothers and their oppositions!

4) JAK - the Janus Kinase, which is fondly referred as "Just Another Kinase".

5) smaug - the Drosophila gene that represses dwarfism in the fly, named after Tolkien's Smaug, who wasn't very fond of little people either.

Listening to Operation Ivy

Confessions of an info-aholic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:14:00 +0000

Some people have crack,
some people have smack,
others do listerine, valium, codeine,
TLC, cocaine or LA ink.

I am on information high. I do large doses
of Wikipedia, Wikimedia, expert websites.
I touch the surface of the waves in this ocean
and that is enough, soon
I move to something else.

Like saturated receptors, my brain gets
tired of details. I need no real experience,
I just need more, I need to know
nothing about it all.

Caffeine, vicodin, ayhuasca, Idol?
I have Google for all my searches
into the depth of my soul
and the collective minds of it all.

Pot, alcohol, Prada,
meth, e, religion, ask.com?
Your drugs of choice,
providing the lies to answer
all the questions you don't want to ask.

I choose the information highway
to know a little about everything
and never understand anything.
So I can converse like an all-knowing
empty shell with
the substance abusers and the TV users.

So I can die having experienced
most of the universe
without ever really knowing any of it.

Listening to Junk - Paul McCartney

Top Five of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Top Five Least Favorite Star Wars Characters:

1. Indisputable - Jar Jar Bings - he is annoying, drolly and a waste of CGI.

2. Count Dooku - A disappointment after the awesomeness of Darth Maul

3. That alien who is Lando's co-pilot in ROJD, I mean what is he even saying?

4. Admiral Ackbar - There is just something odd about that fish head.

5. C3PO - He is like that closet homosexual friend of your wife who just won't shut-up. I feel bad for him, it seems to me that robots would not be gay-friendly, but still.. that's why he is 5.

Venn Diagram

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Sharing your life with someone is an exercise in civility. In understanding that freedom only goes so far as the health of your environment. Freedom amidst chaos is worse than a prison. My limits are only as valid as your limits and somewhere in between these limits is love. Love is not unconditional surrender, love is turning polar opposites into a Venn Diagram.

Listening to Venn Diagram, by Lisa Hannigan

Free as in FREE SPEECH

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000

The internet should always remain free for it was born free to allow free flow of information. Free as in FREEDOM. Creating legislation that is ambiguous and gives corporate copyright holders tools to attack those who fight for that FREEDOM is an attack to very principle of free flow of information. If nothing else, think about this: do you know how in China they can block twitter to avoid voices from the outside to be heard? That same could happen in the US if PIPA and SOPA are approved in their current form. Don't let the fight to protect copyright become a excuse to circumvent free speech.

Please go to www.xkcd.com for links where you can get more information on PIPA and SOPA.

Listening to Hey Rosetta!

A life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:39:00 +0000

This is all you get, black or white; straight or gay; happy or sad; purple or grey;
all you get is this, neatly or not
contained in between the day you were born
and the day you die. A life
for better or worse, success or failure,
like all living things, human or not, furry or not, cute or not,
one day you came into this world
and sometime later, maybe seconds, minutes, hours or days,
you will leave it. Take what you are given as what it
is. A life, like everybody's else.

True story

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:35:00 +0000

I will tell a true new year story, it happened to a friend of a friend of an old friend I used to know a long time ago. This story begins with Ingmar Bergman and the Seventh Seal. One of the greatest movies ever made, right? It was new year eve a long long time ago, but in this very galaxy. Our hero loved Ingmar Bergman and cried every time he watched Fanny and Alexander. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that there was no art comparable to his Swedish hero. Woody Allen is witty, Cronenberg is raw, Lynch is crazy; but Bergman is sublime. Sublime like our hero's love for his lover. An old love, set in stone, concrete, destined to wed two parts of a tragedy; but oh so beautiful and sublime; like an illusion, a mirage in the desert of loneliness. And so one day our unnamed hero, friend of a friend of an old love went on a journey, as heros must. In that journey he fought monsters, climbed mountains and watched the sun set. He met temptation and desire; and in face of those he reminded himself that he was a hero in a tragedy, and that as such he must not deviate from his sad and sublime love. However, desire sometimes knows no boundaries and as the old poet said: there is a crack in everything, that is how the lights get in. Confused and lost, our hero tried to walk away from the face of temptation into the light of a movie theatre. He just wanted to think of something else, and so with no new Bergman motion pictures out, having no other choice, he went to see Serendipity, a soppy pop comedy about fate, randomness and luck. Not a Bergman or an Allen, not even a Spielberg, who even he had to confess, had had his moments. So our hero watched the movie's hero go on journeys, face the mountains and walk out of his tragedy renewed, with a new love, now destined to be happy ever after. In that precise moment, like in The Dead, out of the most trivial things, our hero had an epiphany. Into desire he must give himself, for sometimes true love is a product of serendipity, of randomness, and without risk one cannot escape one's own tragedy. Only he forgot that lessons from romantic comedies are often flawed, bearing very little attachment to the real world. So into desire he went and by desire he was almost destroyed. Almost, for he survived the pain, betrayal and anger, which are often the results of desire that lacks love. And at the other side of his journey, renewed and alive, he realized that important lessons were learned, and that even though the Seventh Seal was still sublime, it was Serendipity that had changed his life.

Listening to Leonard Cohen

Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:36:00 +0000

This horrible year you had, it is almost over. Nothing went your way, nothing; no victories and no glory. You are so glad it is done; now it is time to make new promises and new goals. This life you have, it is not what you want. This food you eat, it is not the food of the kings like you dreamed it would be. The new year is upon you though, and the new it will come with it. The bed you sleep in is not comfortable and you hate your job. It is ok, it will be better next year. You will buy a new car, a bigger TV and a new house. Your life sucks now, you eat this fresh food 3 times a day, but it is so boring. Nothing could be worse than the time you had this past year. Your job is killing you, you'd give anything for something else. For not having a job? Would you? This small house you live in is oppressing you. Oh, what wouldn't you trade for an alternative? Maybe the oppression of a South American dictator or an megalomaniac African tyrant? Next year. Next year they will still be dying; dying of war, of hunger, dysentery and disease. And you? You will buy that Prius you always wanted, to save the earth, right? This car you have now, it is a curse, you'd trade anything for something else. Walking miles with buckets of water on your back? Riding the crowded buses at 5AM, feeling like a packed sardine that was left on the dashboard in a sunny day? Oh yes, next year it will be better. The poor will still be poor, but you will get a new mortgage to buy a new house. Your life full of iPads and cable TV really sucks, you don't even have HBO. You feel like you are dying inside; and out there, outside people are really dying. Eating rotten food, drinking poisoned water. For them, next year won't be better, next year may never be. Your life sucks, your TV is too small. Next year, maybe next year you'll be grateful, for having a new a year, for not dying in the gutter of hunger, disease, pain and shame. Happy NEW YEAR!

Listening to The Once

Punctuation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:49:00 +0000

The comma, the colon, the semicolon; how lonely are the most misunderstood parts of punctuation? I, who write about them, don't understand these symbols myself. List or complex lists? Sentences, are you independent or not? Do you get a comma or a semicolon? And between you and I, is there a comma subjectively connecting us or like lonely clauses in coordinated sentences on an infinite list of complete actions, are we separated? And if in the desert of that separation I call for you; there is that vocative comma, now filling the void between the cry and the anxious await for response. Or on those complex lists of the things I did that you hate, dislike and distrust; things that made you weep and sob and cry; those lists too deserve semicolons. Those things that punctuate our lives, like love, life and death. The minor details that completely change the meanings of words. Do I call for you or do I love you; are you my vocative or subject? Never dare to separate a subject from its verb with a comma, no greater sin there is than for a subject to become a mere vocative. No greater sin there is than to misplace a semicolon; this staple that marks the superiority of those who think they know it all and those who just know they don't. No matter that your soul has been separated from your body by a hard colon; this shell is what you see: an appositive of the human that once was. And I, who know nothing of these things, only ask that if you misplace the meanings, at least allow me the chance to change these disconnected coordinated sentences into something meaningful before you terminate my story with a .