Yet again, another cigarette, another disappointment. As a non-smoker, I told people it really wasn't that hard to quit, just got to start doing it and slowly it becomes a reality. A bit like jumping off a cliff maybe, but as Miley Cyrus says, it's the "climb." At the end you forget the journey, but when you remember, the journey was really difficult, that's the beauty of it. So I'm looking out as a smoker once again, unbelieving that I'm here again, trying to focus, back into the mentality of the dream of once again, becoming a non-smoker.
It's so sad that it's a brain chemical addiction. The body craves it, but the processing in the brain craves it more. Believe it or not, minds are often muted when quitting, being so deprived. Bodies are drained, and ill. Emotions are dark and muddled. The brain speaks the language it knows. When hungry, one eats, when tired one sleeps, when craving.....one deprives. And if you fail, deprivation diets are the worst. If you succeed, bravo. But the brain, that's the funniest thing about it, it tells you with words, "have a cigarette," just like it tells you, "you are deprived of Vitamin C, drink some orange juice," etc. One feels a bit robotic just then, when one recognizes how it works. But understanding a disease is the first step to the cure. My one friend said that he just decided that he had to get used to feeling deprived, he would never get over it, just had to accept that was how one was gonna feel. Me too, in the past. It's like one recognizes that there will always be the next cigarette on the horizon, if you don't say no to this one, you'll just have a million more, and still want. I want to be in control of myself, as much as a person can be. Just got to be ready for the journey.
But alas, here I am, still fighting, still smoking, still believing in the dream.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The famous Buddhist koan, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" An exercise meant to subdue the initial reasoning process and propel one into a state of seeing beyond, thinking outside the box, or feeling outside it, rather? A paradigm? Always a mystery to me, not completely, but as I sit and read about other men explaining it with rationalizations, I do not see that it is meant as an unreasonable exercise, completely set apart. Reason reaches conclusions where two things are equally true and equally opposite, thus a paradox. The amusing thing is that the first step of logic is abiding by the law of non-contradiction, but at it's end, the truth is a contradiction. Enlightenment, using one's brain in a different way, but still, why not reason along the way? Can we really propel our mind outside reason? We do not think anything at all if we do not reason, we must draw distinctions and conclusions even to utilize language at all. Maybe not outside it, but beyond it. Pascal did say something to the effect that reasons last step was to realize that there was an infinite number of steps beyond it.
To see without seeing, to know without knowing, to rationalize without understanding. To just be?
Ah, I look upon my hands and I see openness, and medicine. But moreso, I see the caring of the artist who drew upon my hands. I see the dream to be more wholly myself once again, doing what I was born to do, being who I was born to be. I see hope, I see the marks of suffering, and a desire to embrace it. I see spirituality, a belief embraced and expressed with the intention to help, not to proselytize, nor to hinder, not with egoism at it's base. I hold only good things in my hands.
and if shadows say something
my words then have meaning
when darkness is being
when dreams are still seeing
when walking through the light
make mysteries your potions
make madness your gleening
make reason a bedfellow
he too, retreating
To see without seeing, to know without knowing, to rationalize without understanding. To just be?
Ah, I look upon my hands and I see openness, and medicine. But moreso, I see the caring of the artist who drew upon my hands. I see the dream to be more wholly myself once again, doing what I was born to do, being who I was born to be. I see hope, I see the marks of suffering, and a desire to embrace it. I see spirituality, a belief embraced and expressed with the intention to help, not to proselytize, nor to hinder, not with egoism at it's base. I hold only good things in my hands.
and if shadows say something
my words then have meaning
when darkness is being
when dreams are still seeing
when walking through the light
make mysteries your potions
make madness your gleening
make reason a bedfellow
he too, retreating
Unconditional Love
So we meet again. Let me practice my fingers and exercise my mind, it's been a long time.
Time stands still? Eternity? Unconditional love is unchanging, unalterable, and one? Well, as human beings, we are subject perpetually in part to change, it cannot, as we say, be unchanging but as to the nature of the question, let us ponder.
For time to stand still, a thing must remain forever itself, forever active but occupying no space nor time. A thing must be so completely itself that it could not be another thing, and it must be a thing that occupies no space and if time is the measurement of changes, let us propose that it cannot be moved by time.
St. Thomas Aquinas proposed the state of aeveternity, I believe. Physical things occupy physical space and are wholly a slave to time. God is eternal and is not subject to time, for He cannot change, He is what He is and He could never be another thing. So it is said, is the soul, however, it can change in process not in it's nature, so it is neither a slave to time, nor is it eternal, thus we introduce a third state of existence.
Ah perhaps, we shall break this down into a few more pieces, key note from Aquinas:
" And, therefore, in order that generation (coming-to-be) come about, three things are necessary: namely, a potential something which is the matter, and not-being in act which is the privation, and that through which it becomes in act, namely, the form. Let us take an example: when a statue-is made from bronze, the bronze which is in potency for the form of the statue is 'the matter'; the privation is the shapelessness or the lack of the form (of statue in the molten bronze); the shape by which we call it a statue is the form. The form of statue, however, is not the substantial form, because the bronze before the coming-to-be of this form (of statue) has being in act, and its being does not depend upon this shape (of statue) which is an accidental form. All artificial forms are accidental forms. For art only operates upon those things already constituted in being by nature."
Nature is the question of what a thing "is", accidents are better compared to what that thing can do. A thing, a soul for instance, is capable of loving or not loving, caring or not caring, hoping or not hoping. For comparison, a rose plant can grow from a seed, into a thing with leaves, into a budding thing with leaves, into a supportive rose plant. Or whatever, haha. The rose plant, unless in it's nature, it's not really a rose plant, can only produce roses. However the original seed could have deteriorate prior generation, and it can equally decompose. A rose is not a rose. You can say it has the nature of a rose, but it's accidents are in a perpetual state of change, so you can never really say that a rose is red or a rose is blue or green. A rose at it's peak is red perhaps, with green leaves. Upon death, it is brown until it's non-existence. So it's accidents change, and it's being ceases to exist, completely subject to time.
My point, you say? Let us get back to the notion of the soul which is capable of loving or not loving. It can never, in my belief, deteriorate like the rose, it can never become dirt, it will not decompose into minerals which will feed something else. Supposing that is true, let us say that we cannot be beyond what we are, and we cannot "do" beyond what we are, so can we love and love eternally? We can love aeveternally, perhaps? Hehe, much better than corporeal'ly', at least. So, I agree, for the most part. ;)
Time stands still? Eternity? Unconditional love is unchanging, unalterable, and one? Well, as human beings, we are subject perpetually in part to change, it cannot, as we say, be unchanging but as to the nature of the question, let us ponder.
For time to stand still, a thing must remain forever itself, forever active but occupying no space nor time. A thing must be so completely itself that it could not be another thing, and it must be a thing that occupies no space and if time is the measurement of changes, let us propose that it cannot be moved by time.
St. Thomas Aquinas proposed the state of aeveternity, I believe. Physical things occupy physical space and are wholly a slave to time. God is eternal and is not subject to time, for He cannot change, He is what He is and He could never be another thing. So it is said, is the soul, however, it can change in process not in it's nature, so it is neither a slave to time, nor is it eternal, thus we introduce a third state of existence.
Ah perhaps, we shall break this down into a few more pieces, key note from Aquinas:
" And, therefore, in order that generation (coming-to-be) come about, three things are necessary: namely, a potential something which is the matter, and not-being in act which is the privation, and that through which it becomes in act, namely, the form. Let us take an example: when a statue-is made from bronze, the bronze which is in potency for the form of the statue is 'the matter'; the privation is the shapelessness or the lack of the form (of statue in the molten bronze); the shape by which we call it a statue is the form. The form of statue, however, is not the substantial form, because the bronze before the coming-to-be of this form (of statue) has being in act, and its being does not depend upon this shape (of statue) which is an accidental form. All artificial forms are accidental forms. For art only operates upon those things already constituted in being by nature."
Nature is the question of what a thing "is", accidents are better compared to what that thing can do. A thing, a soul for instance, is capable of loving or not loving, caring or not caring, hoping or not hoping. For comparison, a rose plant can grow from a seed, into a thing with leaves, into a budding thing with leaves, into a supportive rose plant. Or whatever, haha. The rose plant, unless in it's nature, it's not really a rose plant, can only produce roses. However the original seed could have deteriorate prior generation, and it can equally decompose. A rose is not a rose. You can say it has the nature of a rose, but it's accidents are in a perpetual state of change, so you can never really say that a rose is red or a rose is blue or green. A rose at it's peak is red perhaps, with green leaves. Upon death, it is brown until it's non-existence. So it's accidents change, and it's being ceases to exist, completely subject to time.
My point, you say? Let us get back to the notion of the soul which is capable of loving or not loving. It can never, in my belief, deteriorate like the rose, it can never become dirt, it will not decompose into minerals which will feed something else. Supposing that is true, let us say that we cannot be beyond what we are, and we cannot "do" beyond what we are, so can we love and love eternally? We can love aeveternally, perhaps? Hehe, much better than corporeal'ly', at least. So, I agree, for the most part. ;)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
In High School English class, we read a story, I think written by an Englishman, about one of the traditions of the Natives and his observations. The story and the tradition, of course, to the cultured was quite outrageous or it created outrage in people.
The story was about how there were the tribes and the tribes had to keep moving, I would assume to stay alive, or so they felt. In the end it is a question of the survival of the fittest, and almost a might makes right philosophy, thought they may have been right, or they may have been wrong. Survival at all costs?
So the story was about how the tribes, when the aged could no longer carry themselves, they'd leave them alone in the wilderness to die. They couldn't, or so they felt, carry these ones around, the burden burdened and threatened, or so they felt, the whole community.
The questions always in my mind from such a story, have always been the might makes right philosophy, the survival at all costs, survival of the fittest, when death is murder, when suicide is martyrdom, when martyrdom is necessary, if it is ever necessary, was it necessary in this case?
Quite literally, to willingly stay behind in the wilderness alone when you need a community to survive, that's an act of suicide. But then, if your continued presense threatens the community, that's an act of martyrdom, yet if it is forced on you, that is an act of murder, no matter how the deed is done.
Morality, is it ever right to kill even just one, for the good of the community? My ethical code of course, says no.
My Church has a banner that's been up for at least fifteen years, whether near the altar or in the basement that says, "The welfare of the whole world is not worth the life of one child." I take "not worth" to mean, not equal. In other words, the life of every child, even just one child, is worth the suffering of every person. Something like that at least, we could discuss it.
In one of my favorite novels, or series of novels, the main character is a doctor, Claire Beauchamp. The first novel in the series is, "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon.
In the story, third book I think, there is a man who's dying of a disease in which he will not survive, I think. Well, they are trying to save him, problem is, it's costing a fortune in the States, and so he asks her to end his life so that he isn't burdening his family with these exhorbiant medical costs.
In the end, everybody knew she did it, though it was never formally acknowledged. I can't recall whether they laid her off, and then she went back in time and it didn't matter, or if they put her in a position where she was not capable of doing that again. Either way, I feel outrage at such a thought.
Doctor-assisted suicide? Murder? Outrageous?
Random thoughts, my mind is working a mile a minute.
Hmmm, paradox:
"This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like win. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Chrisitanity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing th distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying."
Chesterton - "Orthodoxy"
The story was about how there were the tribes and the tribes had to keep moving, I would assume to stay alive, or so they felt. In the end it is a question of the survival of the fittest, and almost a might makes right philosophy, thought they may have been right, or they may have been wrong. Survival at all costs?
So the story was about how the tribes, when the aged could no longer carry themselves, they'd leave them alone in the wilderness to die. They couldn't, or so they felt, carry these ones around, the burden burdened and threatened, or so they felt, the whole community.
The questions always in my mind from such a story, have always been the might makes right philosophy, the survival at all costs, survival of the fittest, when death is murder, when suicide is martyrdom, when martyrdom is necessary, if it is ever necessary, was it necessary in this case?
Quite literally, to willingly stay behind in the wilderness alone when you need a community to survive, that's an act of suicide. But then, if your continued presense threatens the community, that's an act of martyrdom, yet if it is forced on you, that is an act of murder, no matter how the deed is done.
Morality, is it ever right to kill even just one, for the good of the community? My ethical code of course, says no.
My Church has a banner that's been up for at least fifteen years, whether near the altar or in the basement that says, "The welfare of the whole world is not worth the life of one child." I take "not worth" to mean, not equal. In other words, the life of every child, even just one child, is worth the suffering of every person. Something like that at least, we could discuss it.
In one of my favorite novels, or series of novels, the main character is a doctor, Claire Beauchamp. The first novel in the series is, "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon.
In the story, third book I think, there is a man who's dying of a disease in which he will not survive, I think. Well, they are trying to save him, problem is, it's costing a fortune in the States, and so he asks her to end his life so that he isn't burdening his family with these exhorbiant medical costs.
In the end, everybody knew she did it, though it was never formally acknowledged. I can't recall whether they laid her off, and then she went back in time and it didn't matter, or if they put her in a position where she was not capable of doing that again. Either way, I feel outrage at such a thought.
Doctor-assisted suicide? Murder? Outrageous?
Random thoughts, my mind is working a mile a minute.
Hmmm, paradox:
"This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like win. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Chrisitanity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing th distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying."
Chesterton - "Orthodoxy"
I am so bloody excited! I finally, after ten or fifteen years of searching, have found the basic idea behind the novel I want to write. It's an interesting and uncommon idea/conflict, it's interesting to think about, it would be, if I can pull it off, interesting to read. I now have some experience to draw from, and it could get very simply and very deeply psychological. It can be dramatic, it can be romantic, it can be philosophical, it can be psychological. It's perfect!
Ack, I'm so excited! I'm writing something and it's more of a romance/sex thing right now, but it was intended to get the "creative juices" flowing so to speak, and it worked!
Did I mention how excited I am yet?
I'm so anxious to get started, but I'm going to study and contemplate and review the ideas in question I want to work with first, so here I am, and we can discuss the ideas in question for awhile, if anybody is interested.
Key note:
Chesterton - "Orthodoxy"
"Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything otuside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the marty is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destoyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe."
Now, that's just a thought, but there is a thought more fascinating, beyond this one, where the suicide has no choice in his desire to die, and potentially when his death is to him an act of martyrdom (Muslims, for instance). "There is no greater love than this, that a man may offer his life for his friends." - Christ
I would love to get knee deep in the reasonings of the Romans in killing themselves on the battlefield, how that was a noble thing to do and into the idea behind how it is expected that a captain must sink with his ship, that that is a noble idea to some people. The difference between the Catholic Saint, and the Roman soldier. The Muslim, the nihilist, the Christian, the pagan, etc., etc., etc.
Oh man, there's so much to look at, so much to read, so much to study, so much to write!
So it begins.
Any thoughts on the subject?
Ack, I'm so excited! I'm writing something and it's more of a romance/sex thing right now, but it was intended to get the "creative juices" flowing so to speak, and it worked!
Did I mention how excited I am yet?
I'm so anxious to get started, but I'm going to study and contemplate and review the ideas in question I want to work with first, so here I am, and we can discuss the ideas in question for awhile, if anybody is interested.
Key note:
Chesterton - "Orthodoxy"
"Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything otuside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the marty is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destoyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe."
Now, that's just a thought, but there is a thought more fascinating, beyond this one, where the suicide has no choice in his desire to die, and potentially when his death is to him an act of martyrdom (Muslims, for instance). "There is no greater love than this, that a man may offer his life for his friends." - Christ
I would love to get knee deep in the reasonings of the Romans in killing themselves on the battlefield, how that was a noble thing to do and into the idea behind how it is expected that a captain must sink with his ship, that that is a noble idea to some people. The difference between the Catholic Saint, and the Roman soldier. The Muslim, the nihilist, the Christian, the pagan, etc., etc., etc.
Oh man, there's so much to look at, so much to read, so much to study, so much to write!
So it begins.
Any thoughts on the subject?
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