Books are important to me. Not just Great Books, but most books -- every day, ordinary stories, DIYs, cook-books, you -name -it -I -want -it -on -my -shelf-books. (yes, I love libraries) I like books with tiny words, big words, pictures and indexes. Leather bound, cardboard, metal --- all good.
Did she just say metal? Yes, I did. I have a 1938 cook book which consists of a set of recipe cards enclosed in a metal six-ring binder.
I like old books, new books, and magazines. I like reference books. I like, most of all, that I can find meaning in a book that pertains to my life at any given junction. I don’t expect that I will ever write or publish my own book, although I would like to do just that. I don’t love to write as much as I love to read.
However, as part of my effort to keep the brain working and to understand myself, I write about what I read. I do this to help digest what I have read. I do this because when it was the time in my life when I was meant to read and absorb great ideas from great books by great individuals, I was too self-absorbed. I often wonder if my sense of failure as a human comes from not imbibing the knowledge back then……
I will not dwell on it. I have probably 50-60 more years to make use of and I want to do something great. So, I am starting from scratch in asking and finding answers to eternal questions. But the benefit of starting from scratch a second time, is that you remember the pros and cons, the benefits and drawbacks, what worked and what didn’t that you learned from the first time and if you are smart, you remember to use this knowledge the second time.
I took many things at face value for a long time. Maybe not the extent as some as I usually needed to know history or background as to why we came to a certain conclusion. But when it comes to the first eternal question asked by so many, I have already formed some of my answer. The question is God? Does God or do gods exist? What is the divine and does it care about humans?
By the way, these eternal questions asked by nearly everyone at some point were defined by Professor J. Rufus Fears from the University of Oklahoma. With a Ph.D. from Harvard, numerous awards and many books under his belt, I at least feel he is someone who can guide me on my quest for understanding as I make my way through a self-led course from The Teaching Company entitled Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life.
Question number 2 is about fate, number 3 about good and evil and the last question relates to discovering how we should live. In the history of civilizations, written language developed to pass the answers of these same questions from generation to generation. But I see where it has be perverted and used for evil to create people that are lost and with out a real sense of self --- those blinded by being unable to “think for themselves” or deceived into believing that they do think for themselves but are so brained washed. I don’t really know what I am trying to say here, but I am not be condescending. I just think there is so much more out there and that people don’t challenge the status quo because they just can’t. They can’t. They just can’t.
So… following Professor Rufus, I am off to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, along with some supplemental texts. Can’t wait to see where this takes me.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Why Do Women Have Sex? - Yahoo! News
Why Do Women Have Sex? - Yahoo! News
I was enticed to read this thinking I might learn something I didn't already know. Nope, one big fat DUH!
The more and more I think about it, the more and more the idea of Sin bothers me. Those who preach terror are fools.
We are human and sex is a very complicated emotional action. No big deal. So is just about everything we do from eating to shitting.
I was enticed to read this thinking I might learn something I didn't already know. Nope, one big fat DUH!
The more and more I think about it, the more and more the idea of Sin bothers me. Those who preach terror are fools.
We are human and sex is a very complicated emotional action. No big deal. So is just about everything we do from eating to shitting.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Just when you think you are the only one
Just when you think you are the only one to battle a particular thought in your heart and mind, all you have to do is Google it and VOILA! someone has already figured it out.
Nothing I do or say seems to ever be original. It doesn't matter though, does it? I mean, after all, we are all just the same atoms recycled over and over so why shouldn't our thoughts be the same?
I struggle with Religion. I mean modern day church-on-Wednesday-nights-and-Sunday-mornings-let's-all-be-too-judgemental-hyprocritcal religion. I struggle with my own belief in God, Jesus and Christian thought. I yearn to understand more about Judeaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Naturalists --- any other alternative really. I hold most true and close to my heart science.
Paranormal. Art. Health. Oddities. Extraterrestrial. History. Oikology. Everything.
That spells Pahoehoe which is a type of lava flow. From Wikipedia "A pāhoehoe flow typically advances as a series of small lobes and toes that continually break out from a cooled crust. It also forms lava tubes where the minimal heat loss maintains low viscosity. The surface texture of pāhoehoe flows varies widely, displaying all kinds of bizarre shapes often referred to as lava sculpture. With increasing distance from the source, pāhoehoe flows may change into ʻaʻā flows in response to heat loss and consequent increase in viscosity." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava
That's my life and learning. I just flow along, reading, watching, listening and thinking about everything and nothing. If my brain weren't encapsulated in my skull, it would flow looking much like the patterns seen in Pahoehoe lava, don't you think?
I recently stumbled across a web site about how the Brain Cell looks like the Universe. That pretty sums up my day. It is a mouse's brain cell, but that is no matter to me. It just proves we are repeating patterns. It also served to show me what I have been feeling. Religion, spiritualism --- what ever name you give it exists in your heart and mind to give you a sense of belonging in a giant endless universe.
I also found Scared Evolution. I am still reading up on it but my first impression is this: How retarded. I hate when people try to create something and they do it with such an immature design that their masterpiece comes off as laughable. I know I feel this way partly out of that jealous thought of "Why didn't I think of doing that?" and partly out of thinking if you are going to do something, do it well.
You know what I realized just now? I started this blog because I don't have anyone to talk to about everything and nothing. I always think my thoughts and interests don't appeal to many others or that I am offending them.
Nothing I do or say seems to ever be original. It doesn't matter though, does it? I mean, after all, we are all just the same atoms recycled over and over so why shouldn't our thoughts be the same?
I struggle with Religion. I mean modern day church-on-Wednesday-nights-and-Sunday-mornings-let's-all-be-too-judgemental-hyprocritcal religion. I struggle with my own belief in God, Jesus and Christian thought. I yearn to understand more about Judeaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Naturalists --- any other alternative really. I hold most true and close to my heart science.
Paranormal. Art. Health. Oddities. Extraterrestrial. History. Oikology. Everything.
That spells Pahoehoe which is a type of lava flow. From Wikipedia "A pāhoehoe flow typically advances as a series of small lobes and toes that continually break out from a cooled crust. It also forms lava tubes where the minimal heat loss maintains low viscosity. The surface texture of pāhoehoe flows varies widely, displaying all kinds of bizarre shapes often referred to as lava sculpture. With increasing distance from the source, pāhoehoe flows may change into ʻaʻā flows in response to heat loss and consequent increase in viscosity." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava
That's my life and learning. I just flow along, reading, watching, listening and thinking about everything and nothing. If my brain weren't encapsulated in my skull, it would flow looking much like the patterns seen in Pahoehoe lava, don't you think?
I recently stumbled across a web site about how the Brain Cell looks like the Universe. That pretty sums up my day. It is a mouse's brain cell, but that is no matter to me. It just proves we are repeating patterns. It also served to show me what I have been feeling. Religion, spiritualism --- what ever name you give it exists in your heart and mind to give you a sense of belonging in a giant endless universe.
I also found Scared Evolution. I am still reading up on it but my first impression is this: How retarded. I hate when people try to create something and they do it with such an immature design that their masterpiece comes off as laughable. I know I feel this way partly out of that jealous thought of "Why didn't I think of doing that?" and partly out of thinking if you are going to do something, do it well.
You know what I realized just now? I started this blog because I don't have anyone to talk to about everything and nothing. I always think my thoughts and interests don't appeal to many others or that I am offending them.
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