Urban Ascetic Redux

Dokkōdō The precepts:

2012-01-09T06:01:00.001-08:00

Accept everything just the way it is.

Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

Be detached from desire your whole life long.

Do not regret what you have done.

Never be jealous.

Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.

Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.

In all things have no preferences.

Be indifferent to where you live.

Do not pursue the taste of good food.

Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.

Do not act following customary beliefs.

Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

Do not fear death.

Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.

Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.

Never stray from the Way.

ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokk%C5%8Dd%C5%8D

Posted via email from Urban Ascetic (Lite)

Ninety-Nine Percent

2011-10-30T16:33:00.001-07:00

Ninety-Nine Percent

We're so much less than we were ever born to be
It seems you see
this is a world set up to serve the tiniest Minority

A common political diffusion, focused on fixed financial profusion, aimed at mass confusion, promoting a mechanistic mentality
That does its best to box us in, set us up, and rob us of our Humanity

Such HARD choices , made before most of us even take a breath

A "matter of fact" world made up of mean compromise and shoddy pretence

A salesman's paradise without dimension, a staged scene, a painted over prop produced to push a lie:
"Work hard, head down , just like Us - you to can Rise
Or accept your lot, turn on your TV -set, relax and let it happen, You were born to serve"

Our fruits, our ken, our hardest won rewards (tell of something more)
Our Poetry, our Literature, our Songs, sing of something else

But it seems they're all for the dogs?

Even science
Subtle complexity of mind, independent thinking
Chained
Shorn of beauty, laid bare, cold and unadorned
Unloved servant of the flesh
Stripped and strapped and pressed into rude service
When with it we should soar
To find new vista's, new horizons, new dimensions
The heavens as our gateway, inspiration as our door

But no, it seems we are not set on seeking more
Our freedoms are nothing but a corporate invention, our lives spent marking time in service of a pipe-dream, our best minds bent on making:
Fixed, fee, derivative, credit, swaps

And Yet
They call Us mad, for seeking something else?
They say, there is no other way
Things are as they are
and that's how they'll stay
and so we're forced to "Occupy"

They do not fear us yet, they do not hear us yet
but they will, for we are waking
We are the ninety nine percent

Posted via email from wrdeer

Mankind at Play #poetry

2011-10-30T16:12:00.001-07:00

Mankind at play

Some words I’d like to say
About the things we do instead, about the games we play:

It's not just diversion, it's distraction that we seek
We want to hide from the cold, hard, facts because we're weak

It's joy and escapism to flee the world we build
Because it's hard to face the harsh realities unfurled

But we'll take the joy, the sparkling moments that we find
The happiness between cracks, the pleasures of the mind

And in this brief interlude, oasis of the heart
Something new and green can grow, enough to make a start

And taking this I'm hoping
That one day soon we'll find
The courage to forget we're working and learn to savour all mankind

Posted via email from wrdeer

One Percent

2011-10-30T13:22:00.001-07:00

I was asked to take part in a G+ poetry slam.

I challenged myself to see what I could come up with by way of new stuff on short notice this was my first attempt and I didn't use it but I thought i'd post it rather than bin it.

It's a little whimsical

One Percent

Just 1% of people have the money and the power
They've got away with it for years but now things are turning sour

We sit in stunned silence at the advent of their greed
We scarce believe the inhumanity
that could so disregard the need

Of so many
In place of the gratification of so few

It seems to me
and I'm sure no doubt, it seems the same to you
That maybe we should be trying something better, attempting something new?

Well, Socialism's off the cards
and the communists are Bust
Democracy's all the rage, but that's certainly not US

Capitalism's what got us here and so we'd better not
Aristocracy and monarchy well they're, sooner best forgot

Fascism and dictatorships, management by the Church… non of them did the job I'm not sure which of "Them" is worse

So what's left , there's really not much else
Unless that is we truly want a change
and decide to Share the Wealth

What's this you say, and give away half of what we've got?
It doesn't sound to promising, but what the hell, we'll try, why not

I'll give some up and share it with my fellow man
not to make a profit but just because I can

Maybe without division, with one market for us all
We'll begin to see the worth of man and maybe stem the fall

If we set the common ground for the dignity of man,
before we start the race for riches (each doing what he can)

If first we eat and shelter and everyone gets taught,
then we start the race to see, that each's getting what they ought

Profit as reward for service, in the common good
Each company competing but being punished for not acting like they should

Where double dealing cheaters are made to feel like fools
With prison terms and chastisements for those who break the rules

With politicians, working to represent
"Our views"
Rather than serving the vested interest
that pays and turns the screws

"Wow I'm hearing what your saying It really sounds quite grand
With love and brotherhood and apple pie throughout the land
What's stopping us, lets get started, it seems we have a plan?"

Well we would, if we could, but it seems we need permission from the 1%, before we can?

Posted via email from wrdeer

Soft Light Seize the chance while your eyes are still good to see it\The soft-light that autumn brings #poetry

2011-10-29T04:27:00.001-07:00

*Soft Light*

Seize the chance while your eyes are still good to see it

The soft-light that autumn brings

Soft without blurring

The clear edged golden, green, brown leaves that twinkle with the breeze.

Leave your busy day and borrow some moments for yourself

To store up memories for later

When though you have the time, your eyes won't work so well

Posted via email from wrdeer

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough - Einstein

2011-10-05T14:23:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of PICCSY http://piccsy.com/2011/04/einstein-tianohms/

Posted via email from Urban Ascetic (Lite)

Far ahead of the road I have begun. So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has inner light, even from a distance -Rilke

2011-07-26T01:08:00.001-07:00

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are; a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave...

but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly

Posted via email from wrdeer

A ﬂower born to blush unseen #sixword #poetry #thomasgray

2011-07-16T07:29:00.001-07:00

Fragment from Thomas Gray's, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where thro’ the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the ﬂeeting breath?

Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial ﬁre;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,

Or wak’d to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll;

Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:

Full many a ﬂow’r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

in full

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard - Thomas Gray

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning ﬂight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire’s return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

How jocund did they drive their team aﬁeld!

How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where thro’ the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the ﬂeeting breath?

Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial ﬁre;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,

Or wak’d to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll;

Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:

Full many a ﬂow’r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his ﬁelds withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,

And read their hist’ry in a nation’s eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes conﬁn’d;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse’s ﬂame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect,

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,

That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,

Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted ﬁres.

For thee, who mindful of th’ unhonour’d Dead

Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

“There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

“Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove,

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,

Or craz’d with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

“One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,

Along the heath and near his fav’rite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

“The next with dirges due in sad array

Slow thro’ the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,

Grav’d on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”1

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,

He gain’d from Heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

1 There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are show’rs of violets found;

The redbreast loves to build and warble there,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

The bosom of his Father and his God.

Posted via email from wrdeer

Google+ by xkcd

2011-07-07T11:56:00.001-07:00

http://xkcd.com/918/

Posted via email from wrdeer

My soul, dressed in silence, rises...#sixwords I Am, O Anxious One - Rainer M Rilke

2011-06-23T04:18:00.001-07:00

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice

surging forth with all my earthly feelings?

They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings

and whitely fly in circles round your face.

My soul, dressed in silence, rises up

and stands alone before you: can't you see?

don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe

upon your vision as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.

But when you want to wake, I am your wish,

and I grow strong with all magnificence

and turn myself into a star's vast silence

above the strange and distant city, Time.

Posted via email from wrdeer

I said to Dawn --- be sudden, to Eve --- be soon ... - Francis Thompson:The Hound of Heaven:

2011-06-11T02:27:00.001-07:00

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him down the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears

I hid from him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated

Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears

From those strong feet that followed, followed after

But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat, and a Voice beat,

More instant than the feet:

All things betray thee who betrayest me.

I pleaded, outlaw--wise by many a hearted casement,

curtained red, trellised with inter-twining charities,

For though I knew His love who followe d,

Yet was I sore adread, lest having Him,

I should have nought beside.

But if one little casement parted wide,

The gust of his approach would clash it to.

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,

And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,

Smiting for shelter on their clange d bars,

Fretted to dulcet jars and silvern chatter

The pale ports of the moon.

I said to Dawn --- be sudden, to Eve --- be soon,

With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

From this tremendous Lover.

Float thy vague veil about me lest He see.

I tempted all His servitors but to find

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him, their fickleness to me,

Their traitorous trueness and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue,

Clung to the whistling mane of every wind,

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,

The long savannahs of the blue,

Or whether, thunder-driven,

They clanged His chariot thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet,

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following feet, and a Voice above their beat:

Nought shelters thee who wilt not shelter Me.

I sought no more that after which I strayed

In face of Man or Maid.

But still within the little childrens' eyes

Seems something, something that replies,

They at least are for me, surely for me.

But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair,

With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

Come then, ye other children, Nature's

Share with me, said I, your delicate fellowship.

Let me greet you lip to lip,

Let me twine with you caresses,

Wantoning with our Lady Mother's vagrant tresses,

Banqueting with her in her wind walled palace,

Underneath her azured dai:s,

Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

From a chalice, lucent weeping out of the dayspring.

So it was done.

I in their delicate fellowship was one.

Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies,

I knew all the swift importings on the wilful face of skies,

I knew how the clouds arise,

Spume d of the wild sea-snortings.

All that's born or dies,

Rose and drooped with,

Made them shapers of mine own moods, or wailful, or Divine.

With them joyed and was bereaven.

I was heavy with the Even,

when she lit her glimmering tapers round the day's dead sanctities.

I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together,

and its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine.

Against the red throb of its sunset heart,

I laid my own to beat

And share commingling heat.

But not by that, by that was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah! we know what each other says,

these things and I; In sound I speak,

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor step-dame, cannot slake my drouth.

Let her, if she would owe me

Drop yon blue-bosomed veil of sky

And show me the breasts o' her tenderness.

Never did any milk of hers once bless my thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase, with unperturbe d pace

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

And past those noise d feet, a Voice comes yet more fleet:

Lo, nought contentst thee who content'st nought Me.

Naked, I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke. My harness, piece by piece,

thou'st hewn from me

And smitten me to my knee,

I am defenceless, utterly.

I slept methinks, and awoke.

And slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

I shook the pillaring hours,

and pulled my life upon me.

Grimed with smears,

I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years--

My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.

My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,

Have puffed and burst like sunstarts on a stream.

Yeah, faileth now even dream the dreamer

and the lute, the lutanist.

Even the linked fantasies in whose blossomy twist,

I swung the Earth, a trinket at my wrist,

Have yielded, cords of all too weak account,

For Earth, with heavy grief so overplussed.

Ah! is thy Love indeed a weed,

albeit an Amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

Ah! must, Designer Infinite,

Ah! must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it ?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust.

And now my heart is as a broken fount,

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver upon the sighful branches of my

mind.

Such is. What is to be ?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds,

Yet ever and anon, a trumpet sounds

From the hid battlements of Eternity.

Those shaken mists a space unsettle,

Then round the half-glimpse d turrets, slowly wash again.

But not 'ere Him who summoneth

I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal; Cypress crowned.

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether Man's Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest,

Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit,

Comes at hand the bruit.

That Voice is round me like a bursting Sea:

And is thy Earth so marred,

Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me.

Strange, piteous, futile thing;

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of Naught (He said).

And human love needs human meriting ---

How hast thou merited,

Of all Man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot.

Alack! Thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art.

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save me, save only me?

All which I took from thee, I did'st but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.

All which thy childs mistake fancies as lost,

I have stored for thee at Home.

Rise, clasp my hand, and come.

Halts by me that Footfall.

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

Ah, Fondest, Blindest, Weakest,

I am He whom thou seekest.

Thou dravest Love from thee who dravest Me.

- Francis Thompson

Posted via email from Urban Ascetic (Lite)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Richard Brautigan

2011-05-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

I like to think (and

the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammels and computers

live together in mutually

programming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky.

I like to think

(right now, please!)

of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms.

I like to think

(it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines of loving grace.

- Richard Brautigan

Posted via email from wrdeer

Star crossed anguish of the soul: Existential star wars

2011-05-09T13:13:00.001-07:00

http://youtu.be/Q-uQWNd540I

Via boing boing

Posted via email from wrdeer

Best of times ~ Worst of times? #sixwords Information theory and banker led revisionism

2011-03-24T13:11:00.001-07:00

Ok two book shutouts lifted from Boing Boing.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Imagine my amazement, a book on information theory ( a subject very close to my heart) mentioned in a mainstream outlet ( I guess boing boing classes as mainstream well at least in my mind )

I can't in all conscience recommend a book I haven't read yet

but I know James (Chaos theory ) Gleick's work and this book is definitely now on my todo list, as soon as I can clear some time anyway.

One that won't be making the list anytime soon ( Well unless I can pick it up free somewhere and not contribute in any way to its sales) :

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Is a tome by the intellectually bankrupt former non executive chairman of Norther Rock Matt Ridley ( see what I did there ;).

Matt has been a very naughty boy and his revisionist not so rational but very optimistic ideas will no doubt be resurfacing in the right-wing blogosphere reported as as scientific fact for many years to come.

Ho hum, it seems boing boing giveth and boing boing taketh away.

Posted via email from wrdeer

Stephen king telling it like it is

2011-03-14T13:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1vW1zPmnKQ&feature=youtu.be
Via boing boing

Posted via email from wrdeer

Structural strategic corporate land-grab

2011-03-11T07:09:00.001-08:00

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Posted via email from wrdeer

Charlie Brooker lets rip on Gadaffi

2011-02-27T04:39:00.001-08:00

Funny but not fluffy so beware if you're offended by strong language.

Hmmm I my have to start watching 10 o'clock live again.

Found via boing boing.

Posted via email from wrdeer

A meditation on mind and progress #sixwords

2011-02-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

A Prompt to enlightened practice follows...

Not always, but now and forever
What you've learned leads to more

1 An enigma beneath an ordinary patina 3
2 Without explanation the ineffable is realised 2
3 Paradox is all perception, reality works 1

*A new journey is now begun?*

Read below a tale of Woe?

The start is rarely the beginning

Lose Yourself and forget your Name?

Don't seek annihilation focus on absorption

A Fixed point ~ A changing Universe?

What would you have yourself become?

Nothing extraordinary, just the living Universe

What would you have yourself achieve?

Only what is possible right now

Where are We going ~ You decide

Communication and Communion is the key

I don't hear ~ I won't listen?

I have nothing more to say.

Any point's position's perceived via perspective

Experience changes perception resulting in realisation

Time is relative, resonating with experience

There are no secrets only mysteries

Can you read between the lines?

*At what point do We begin?*

Ask a question, seek an answer?

Pay careful attention and opportunity presents...

Free your Self from busy thinking - Walk into the world and SEE

2011-02-14T11:23:00.001-08:00

In my dim and distant past I used to work for the Cleese founded company video arts, good to see he's still on form.

Insightful little video about creativity.

Space and time to think and breathe is a necessity not a nicety.

Promoting Creativity

Create boundaries of space and time
Let your subconscious work (Sleep on it)
Once you've created space, use constraints to drive delivery

"To know how good you are at something requires the same skills as it does to be good at that thing, which means if you are hopeless at something you lack the skills to know that you are hopeless... This explains a great deal of life ... particularly Hollywood" -John Cleese

Don't Kill Creativity

Be careful about the creativity you kill because you don't understand what you're killing.
Be aware, most people don't know when they don't know
Know what you are good at, belief alone is not enough (what evidence do you have?)
Be sure you are really qualified to kill or claim an idea

Vid found via Annie Colbert Via NeuroNarrative.

Posted via email from Urban Ascetic (Lite)

Persistent oversimplification and outright lies prevail

2011-02-09T12:59:00.001-08:00

Excellent Comment written

halftone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/9510002

Was posted in reply to comments made on| George Monbiot's guardian article:

http://t.co/wsW9yik

@CapitalistPigg

The reason why any kind of planned economy is doomed to fail, is that we are dealing with complex humans who all act based on different needs buying and selling as per their wishes and priorities.

Yes, I agree. Communism failed because it ignores the self-interested core of human nature. No practical realisation of socialist doctrine ever managed to suppress our primary drive to look out for ourselves and kin. It just got corrupted into party elites and black markets

But equally, Capitalism is now failing because it ignores our individual need for collective wellbeing and security. You can see the ill-effects of eliminating collective interest at every level of our society, from unaffordable housing and burgeoning income inequality.through to ecological and environmental destruction, terrorism and war..

The C20th can be seen as a discourse between these two idelogies, where some sort of dynamic balance was achieved between the interests of the individual and the collective. At the extremes were wars and gulags, in the middle was pluralist democratic open society supported by consensus not about ideology but the desirability of balanced interests.

That Communism failed of its own shortcomings was seized upon as a validation of Capitalism, which of course it was not. Since then we've had globalised market fundamentalism. This is now consolidating into a form of fascism in the hands of a super-rich elite.

I don't personally think this is a conspiracy, it is simply an excrescence of the unbridled pursuit of self-interest.. Capitalism doesn't even seem ideological to most people, it just seems normal.

Collective interests have been trampled but they have not and will not go away. Without a strong secular mode of articulation since the obsolescence of Marxism, opposition has organised around whatever does the job. Ideological religious groupings have re-emerged, radical Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are articulations of herd needs. Nationalism is back as endless civil wars. Issue-driven resistance springs up wherever. Events in Tunisia and Cairo have no particular ideological payload, they are simply mass expressions of rage at iniquity. None of this is meaningless "noise" unless we choose not to listen to what it is struggling to say..

This monochrome Capitalist orthodoxy leads to all sorts of crazy. The US is a spectacular example, where any failure of Capitalism is labelled socialism, even though socialism as a political force has more or less been extinct for 30 years. To a man with a hammer everything still looks like a nail. So Obama is a socialist, if not a Muslim, or even a foreign agent. Tahrir Square must be filled with Islamic extremists, even though it isn't. Any attempt at social health care is a communist plot. Meanwhile absolutely nothing is done to constrain the market fundamentalism that is literally destroying the lives and viability of Americans.

We have reached the limits of ideology. Capitalism is now failing of its owncontradictions. The answer is not more of the same, nor is the answer a return to socialism, nor Islam nor any other -ism or -anity. We should know by now that there is no single prescriptive answer. We are contradictory creatures, with conflicting needs. Somehow we have to figure out modes of negotiation and co-existence that do not yet exist.

This is now urgent. There is a looming choice between global economic failure, chaos, and a large cull of population by various means (war, insurrection, crime, starvation, environmental ruination). Or we get our shit together as a species and begin consciously attempting to balance our greed and fear.

I don't know if this is possible. Certain improbable parameters would have to be met. Certainly democracy would have to become ubiquitous. Certainly we'd have to begin thinking of others as fundamentally similar to ourselves, and as liable to the flaws we all share. Certainly money itself would have to be reformed, globally : fractional reserve banking is a structural defect that supervenes all political engineering. Certainly we would have to begin to regard political and economic ideas as merely means to flawed ends rather than truths. Certainly we should get over all ideas that God is going to help.

In short we should decide what sort of world we want to live in, then pragmatically set about making it knowing that all ideology has terrible downsides.

But realistically that ain't gonna happen. Humans invariably choose catharsis and evolve afterwards, learning the hard way. We are far too stupid to learn from history. Absolutely none of our political leaders have any inclination to look beyond the next press release. Few of the population find infantilisation uncomfortable after decades of trained complacency. Besides we all have our pet beliefs, including me. Nah, it just ain't happening. Is it?

Posted via email from wrdeer

Forget your dreams forget your plans... #sixwords

2011-02-06T09:38:00.001-08:00

A Poem of Forgetting

Forget your dreams

Forget your plans

Let your expectations drift away

For you have found it

and to hold it

All must be made anew

Posted via email from wrdeer

Profit's a poor measure of progress #sixwords Naomi Klein eco talk at TED Women

2011-01-23T10:25:00.001-08:00

The underlying narrative of this talk is that we need new stories to inspire and promote our ideas about progress. I couldn't agree more.

Posted via email from wrdeer

"... as simple as possible but not one bit simpler.” – Einstein - Ben Goldacre Talks Bad Science

2010-12-24T06:23:00.001-08:00

Interesting video discussing how the mainstream media's approach to dumbed down science leads us all astray.

Ben talks amazingly quickly yet is both clear and erudite - Kudos Mr Goldacre

Talk about bang for you buck ;)

<p>Ben Goldacre Talks Bad Science from PopTech on Vimeo.</p>

via: boing boing

Posted via email from Urban Ascetic (Lite)

The Assassination of Yogi Bear by the Coward Boo Boo

2010-12-14T06:29:00.001-08:00

Excellent micro parody of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the upcoming abomination of a 3D Movie based on destroying our fond child hood memories of Yogi bear.

Posted via email from wrdeer

Defending language or simply avoiding understanding? #sixwords Grammar matters but meaning matters more | Stephen Fry-Language

2010-10-22T07:14:00.001-07:00

I share this view.

Posted via email from wrdeer

Urban Ascetic Redux

Dokkōdō The precepts:

Ninety-Nine Percent

Ninety-Nine Percent

Mankind at Play #poetry

Mankind at play

One Percent

*One Percent*

*Soft Light* Seize the chance while your eyes are still good to see it\The soft-light that autumn brings #poetry

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough - Einstein

Far ahead of the road I have begun. So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has inner light, even from a distance -Rilke

A ﬂower born to blush unseen #sixword #poetry #thomasgray

Google+ by xkcd

My soul, dressed in silence, rises...#sixwords I Am, O Anxious One - Rainer M Rilke

I said to Dawn --- be sudden, to Eve --- be soon ... - Francis Thompson:The Hound of Heaven:

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Richard Brautigan

Star crossed anguish of the soul: Existential star wars

Best of times ~ Worst of times? #sixwords Information theory and banker led revisionism

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Stephen king telling it like it is

Structural strategic corporate land-grab

Charlie Brooker lets rip on Gadaffi

A meditation on mind and progress #sixwords

A Prompt to enlightened practice follows...

Free your Self from busy thinking - Walk into the world and SEE

Persistent oversimplification and outright lies prevail

halftone.

Forget your dreams forget your plans... #sixwords

Profit's a poor measure of progress #sixwords Naomi Klein eco talk at TED Women

"... as simple as possible but not one bit simpler.” – Einstein - Ben Goldacre Talks Bad Science

The Assassination of Yogi Bear by the Coward Boo Boo

Defending language or simply avoiding understanding? #sixwords Grammar matters but meaning matters more | Stephen Fry-Language

One Percent

Soft Light Seize the chance while your eyes are still good to see it\The soft-light that autumn brings #poetry