great quote

"You can only eat so much corn..."

--Terri B.

Truer words were never spoken... today, at least.

true, so 'very' true...

"...So avoid using the word 'very' because it's lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don't use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys-- to woo women --and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won't do in your essays."

--John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society

I have been guilty of this in the past, very guilty indeed!

signpost ahead...

..::(1)::..

"You know you're in trouble when Rod Serling is in the room talking about you."

better yet, don't tEach them to read

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

--Ray Bradbury

Isn't this where we already are? Government education is less about teaching than it is about indoctrination. Public education graduates more ignorants today than ... pick your own metaphor.

Here's another great quote:

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

The Apostle Paul, Romans 1:22

Don't know that book? You've proved my point...

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."

bEware the man of one book...

--Thomas Aquinas

[quote]

[oh, you!]

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

--Albert Einstein

Albert speaks volumes in only eleven words. Who said brevity is the soul of wit? Shakespeare? What about the sole of wisdom? If you can manage to keep your sources and inspirations hidden you maintain the veil of mystery you deliberately-- whether you realized it or not --affixed to the product of your hands. Or, as Montgomery Scott once said, "Oh, laddie, you've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker."

..::[e]::..

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

-—Mohandas Gandhi

Perfection of the Christian condition as expressed by a Hindu. He nailed (no pun intended) the following quote just as beautifully... "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

..::[e]::..

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything-— all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure --these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

--Steve Jobs

He may be dead tomorrow, so watch out! More iPads, and iWhatzits on the horizon! All kidding aside he speaks the truth. In the face of death, what does it matter if a big part of you thinks you're out of her league. Go talk to her anyway; be yourself, be honest. Only God knows the true value of your efforts, your honesty, and your self...

..::[e]::..

"The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him."

--Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Wow! Did you read that!? Can you even guess at the magnitude of the truth in this? Democrats operate this way. They impose their will on America, but never allow America to impose its will upon them. My, how times have changed! Once, it was 'We the People' who imposed its will upon Washington, but now up is down and right is left. The saddest part in all this is the so-called 'Free Press'. Once champions of Freedom they've sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. Selling us all out in the process.

..::[e]::..

air and light and time and space

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create."

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

--Charles Bukowski

'to find new excuses for.....' what?

I like this guy. What I see in this? The only thing holding you back is yourself; your fears and insecurities that limit and stifle your creativity... Only YOU can prevent forest fires... And only you can stoke the fire in your heart. Inspiration may be the flint to your steel, but you must nurse and coax the spark of their marriage to life.

Amen, and amen.

[oh, you!]

"Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours."

--Swedish Proverb

..::[e]::..

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life

--Pablo Picasso

..::[e]::..

For BJ, my recent ex-employer:

"Treat others as you'd like to be treated.
Life's only a bitch if you are."

But she won't listen; she feels justified in everything she does. And besides which, Karma is beyond her grasp.

..::[e]::..

And finally, before leaving...

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists... it is real... it is possible... it's yours."

--Ayn Rand

the cost of perfection

As an artist you must both recognize the value of the extraordinary talent you possess, and an unsatisfied critical eye...

Picasso is in a park when a woman approaches him and asks him to draw a portrait of her. Picasso agrees and quickly sketches her.

After handing her the sketch she is pleased with the likeness and asks how much she owes him.

"$5,000," he replies.

The woman screams, "but it took you only five minutes."

"No, madam," Picasso replies, "it took me all my life."

* * *

"Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost"

--Samuel Butler

Armed with these two truths you will both grow and prosper in your gifts.

another great quote

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

--Aldous Huxley

our lives as drama

As explained by Kurt Vonnegut

“People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories... But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.”

So. According to Kurt, there is no drama in your life... it simply is what it is. Nothing to get mussed about. Just deal. After all, it all comes out in the wash anyway, right... accept for blood and grass-stains.

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

- Lewis Carroll

Isn't that life to a tee? "I don't know." What with all the foreign bodies (perceptions of reality) pumped into our minds as to what life is all about, and the best practices for life; as devised by writers who are probably more neurotic than the average lab rat sitting in the theater or in front of the TV... where to you want to go?

2011 is coming up. Let's all endeavor to "go" get an intentional life based on reality. Fantasy is always a letdown.

e's wEekly brain dump

I never would have bothered otherwise, because I am loathe to like or appreciate anything Oprah Winfrey promotes-- this has nothing to do with skin color --but it was on the Disney Channel this morning and I had nothing else to do, so I watched Akeelah and the Bee. Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett? amazing actors both, so I was sure I could get something out of it. And that I did.

In my previous post I spoke of fear... of moving on... of fleeing in spite of the guns that awaited. Fear will keep a man in a situation he would otherwise flee the moment his situation is truly grasped. I know fear. So did Akeelah. And her instructor, Mr. Fishburne, told her to read a quote that was framed upon the wall of his office...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Marianne Williamson

I can find nothing wrong with this statement, but I can find something to add.

Like the three servants, each given differing amounts of talents by their master, we are charged to use what we are given to not only enrich the Lord who bestowed to us our talents, and to demonstrate our faithfulness to his command, but to also show his glory through the gifts he has given that others might be drawn to him. We can choose to bury our talents, but then our Lord is not enriched, we are become unfaithful, and our light does not shine.

Were we all given candles and we chose not to light them, what light then would shine to draw others to shelter? God gives us our gifts for a reason. To not light that candle, is to tell God he is wrong about you... that you couldn't possibly do what he already knows you can. It is fear that keeps the candle unlit, that buries our talents that none can be thereby edified. We fear the kind of success HE asks of us.

* * *

I have come to realize that as much as you might want something, that something may not want you. Sometimes you have to let it go, and set your sights on something else. Only pain can result from chasing what does not wish to be caught.

another great quote

Here's one from this evening's new episode of Flash Forward. Peter Coyote, playing the President, had this to say about Congress' daily job performance:

This is Congress masturbating to the sound of its own voice."

"Senator Reid... paging senator Reid..."

But then, this isn't an image I want of milquetoast Harry Reid.

Ick! I think I need a case of hydrogen peroxide to boil that thought out of my head!

stumble to find...

...an interesting quote

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane."

--John Green, Looking for Alaska

I only say "interesting" because it describes exactly how I felt on many occasion about quite a few girls (I say 'girls', but that's just the little boy in me. I mean 'women'), and especially about a new someone in my life.

I'm not interested in the "fnck", I'm interested in the intimacy. And believe you me, Intimacy and Sex are two entirely different soups. They can go hand in hand, but they are not synonymous with one another. The reason being, one is emotional... spiritual even... and can be measured in lifetimes. The other is transitory; it comes, it goes, until next you meet. I fully enjoy the transitory, but I much prefer that one measured by a lifetime.

So, while I do think of the one-- and quite often, being a man --I am drawn to that other 'spiritual' connection between a man and a woman; the one where I could lie down and sleep beside her without the baggage of sex.

Perhaps the most erotic thing I can imagine is being free to be who I am, without fear, in the presence, and in the arms, of someone I truly love.