Posts

Showing posts from November, 2009

Hug a tree

It minds me this morning that nature is truly wonderful in the way she is plentiful in how wonderful she is. I remember one day, while helping a friend in need I grasped at the need to explain the wisdom I then entertained in my mind. Dear friend that he is I still struggle sometime to find the right frame of mind to translate what I think to what I say. Grasping at air to find some sense I suddenly did and I said: Sometime you need to listen my friend, Listen and hear what is said hear what the voices from far try to tell you, And listen, for they are our friends. Or something like that, but this is what I meant. It is Nature that bares us her soul, and free unbound let us humans pride in deed, in need and what we hold. In deed in debt would plenty say but neigh, a mothers love could never say or neigh her brethren cold. [I’m impressed! The spellchecker can actually keep up to date with things forgot, neigh her brethren cold?] The point I am trying to make is that we shou

The power of emotion

Have you ever listened to some awe inspiring music that just blows you away, only to find when you want to share that moment of lyrical ecstasy, nobody else quite get it? It is almost as if the harmony it triggers with your emotions do not always trigger more. Have you ever experienced the explosive passion that music can ignite when played live before a horde of appreciating fans? It is a power that hits you in the chest and blows your mind away, much like the personal experience in the first example, but totally different in the sheer magnitude of feeling. You feel as if your chest could explode! While there are many around that would venture they have delved their share of human emotion, both dark and bright, there are little that compare with emotion shared. When it feels you risk losing yourself in the avalanche of feeling shared, and your body is racked by wave on wave of mutual ecstasy or grief, that is when we shake hands with the divine. Emotion is by and large a perso

More on the laws of nature

Image
What is it to be a law? According to an article online, there are four reasons philosophers examine what it is to be a law of nature: First, laws at least appear to have a central role in scientific practice. Second, laws are important to many other philosophical issues. For example, sparked by the account of counterfactuals defended by Roderick Chisholm (1946, 1955) and Nelson Goodman (1947), and also prompted by Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim's (1948) deductive-nomological model of explanation, philosophers have wondered what makes counterfactual and explanatory claims true, have thought that laws must play some part, and so also have wondered what distinguishes laws from nonlaws. Third, Goodman famously suggested that there is a connection between lawhood and confirmability by an inductive inference. So, some sympathetic to Goodman's idea come to the problem of laws as a result of their interest in the problem of induction. Fourth, philosophers love a good puzzle. So if I ha

Somewhere out there

Image
Just listened to a four year old girl sing the theme song from the Disney movie, An American Tale: Fievel Goes West. It was a strange experience to hear someone sing about dreams come true when they believe it. And so they do!

Meeting God

You know how sometimes the answer to a question is right there under your nose? How sometimes the solution that will give resolution to a mystery that has vexed your mind for days, months or even years can sometimes be found in the very last place you look for it? Right in front of you? Then you know how it was that I met God. And true to the spirit of things I found He was there all the time! I suppose I could get away with the argument that I was blinded by divinity, but the truth is such that even a blind man could see it. Truth be told I guess the best advice I could give to any bold adventurer like me is to just approach it blindly. Research has shown that our brains are good at two things: One, it is very good at pattern recognition. So good in fact, that babies can differentiate between the identity of different sheep. Unfortunately this ability to remember a “face” in a flock is lost, along of a host of other abilities that cannot stand up to the harsh reality we often

God meets Yin

The recent hit song Human , by The Killers has had me wondering about love, and the different ways that we understand this powerful force that connect us all in the common bond of the spirit. While I understand and accept the principle of different strokes for different folks, I am convinced that it stands to reason why this argument is moot if we look at it from a soul perspective. From a soul perspective we all share an eternal unity that transcends this mortal coil of our existence, but it is almost as if the human condition is desperately clinging to its blip on the radar of soul patrol that it cannot comprehend that there is infinitely more to this than that. And if this morbid fear of the end is not enough, accepting the fact that in the spirit there is only we, and that me does not matter anymore is reason aplenty to make even the boldest adventurer begin to doubt the folly of this journey in love. With marriage being the only “acceptable” way of experiencing the divinit

Of happiness

Image
We must add in a complete life. One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy. Aristotle And thus it is I find my self opposed to yet another historical figure, for happiness is as much a choice as chance and just as much a habit as is synchronicity.

Verwonder aan Chrome

Die feit dat die skakel met Google Chrome my na ‘n edit blad geneem het sonder enige opsies om die teks grootte te verstel was die eerste clue. Die feit dat ek in Firefox glad nie die berig kon edit nie was vir my vreemd, want ek weet gewis dat ek dit kon doen in die verlede. Dit, saam met ‘n paar ander fancy truuks soos html references en teks groote verstellings? Toe sien ek waarheen die skakel verwys wat ek nie kon aktifeer nie. Een van my ander blogs, met die artikel: Days like this

Butch praat

Dit was nie die eerste keer nie, en sekerlik ook nie die laaste nie, maar Butch het gepraat. En omdat hy soms mompel het ek maar gegaan met die speelvolle uitkak in sy toon. Ek lag toe, en sê ek weet. Dit is op pad na die katte se kosbak dat ek toe agterkom ek het die hondekos in my hand, en toe dat ek Butch verstaan. Al wat hy wou sê is dat ek besig is om kak aan te jaag met die hondekos, en het heel waarskynlik iets by gemompel soos hy is weer gerook. Of iets. Toe ek Butch vertel hoe opgewonde ek is dat ek hom verstaan, toe mompel hy regtig iets wat ek nie veronderstel was om te verstaan nie. Nie dat ‘n mens regtig honde kan verstaan nie, in elk geval nie so goed nie. Ek lag. Ek dink hy het gemompel dat ek verniet so maak asof ek nie hoor wat hy sê nie.

What is growth?

How do you measure it, and what qualities or attributes will you ascribe to it? And before you answer, keep in mind that everybody’s journey is different from your own. To illustrate some of the mystery I would like to look at the example of Robbie Williams who grew from an activist making noise to a superstar within a year. What would you consider to be necessary to cause a change of that magnitude? Some people take years to achieve what others can do in a year, and even then the apparent advantage that some people seem to get is questionable if we look again at the career of Robbie, and remember the “breakdown” that he went through a few years back. But there I think we find a clue, because at the time of the breakdown, Robbie was reported to be struggling with issues of love and loss. I do not have the answer yet, though I believe I am living it.