“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”


― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

“… the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly.”

When you learn something new and then seem to see it everywhere.

"Slippery Slope of Evil"

There are 7 social processes that grease "the slippery slope of evil":

• Mindlessly taking the first small step
• Dehumanization of others
• De-individuation of self (anonymity)
• Diffusion of personal responsibility
• Blind obedience to authority
• Uncritical conformity to group norms
• Passive tolerance of evil through inaction or indifference

The Blind Men and the Matter of the Elephant, Interlude-Thinking in Systems - Meadows

Beyond Ghor, there was a city. All its inhabitants were blind. A king with his entourage arrived nearby; he brought his army and camped in the desert. He had a mighty elephant, which he used to increase the people's awe.

The populace became anxious to see the elephant, and some sightless from among this blind community ran like fools to find it.

As they did not even know the form or shape of the elephant, they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching some part of it.

Each thought that he knew something, because he could feel a part..

The man whose hand had reached an ear... said, "It is a large, rough thing, wide and broad, like a rug."

And the one who had felt the trunk said, "I have the real facts about it. It is like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive."

The one who had felt its feet and legs said, "It is mighty and firm, like a pillar."

Each had felt one part out of many. Each had perceived it wrongly...

This ancient Sufi story was told to teach a simple lesson but one that we often ignore:

The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.

Great Quotes

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know. "
- Aristotle, (c. 384 - 322 BCE), Plato's student, Alexander the Great's Tutor

"The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know."
- Albert Einstein, (1879 - 1955)

"I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know."
-Socrates, Plato's Apology

"The only thing I know, is that I know nothing."
- Socrates, derived from Plato's account.

Empty Spaces

Do we live our lives trying to fill voids?
Do we live to fill empty space in our mind?

Empty slates, Tabula Rasa

Do we live to fill the empty spaces we feel inside?
To prove that we are not inadequate,
to prove someone wrong,
to gain something we feel like we lost?

Do we live to fill the emptiness?
Do I live to fill this place that I have in mind, filled with all my expectations?

Are we just filled with potential energy?

We are nothing more than matter and energy
trying to fill up our time
in this open space, open system of infinity
infinite
With infinite possibilities

where we either are held down by gravity
or try to defy
defying gravity

defining your own world
your meaning of reality
that you can see in your own unique way
in your one unique way

but we are so much more than these point of view experiences
Aren’t we?

Are we more than one-dimensional objects changing with time?
Are we more than just our experiences?
living only in our mind?

Do we have the ability to transcend?

Or do we just pretend to be content?

Or are we content pretending?

Are we able to pretend?
Or do we pretend that we are able?

One way could never explain the world
the world, the universe, this space could never be explained one way

One all encompassing view
my one way
my point of view
my view, my point
my meaning

our meaning of all these empty spaces
that I am engulfed in
this space, this dimension

where we are only as happy as we make our minds out to be
to fill these empty spaces with our meaning
our reason

that leads us through all of our experiences
this combination of reason and culture

Our ideas clashing with this society
our mentality
our attitude
the way we behave within this space
within this system

and matter and energy always seem to behave by these laws that govern the physical world
physics

but in reality, we consist of endless “societies” looped with one another
Looped within one another
loops within loops, where we can’t even define where one starts and one ends.

Where did it start?
Where will it end?
Will it end?

Idea built upon idea
with every facet able to be defined, refined, challenged, accepted or defeated

these ideas, these laws, these theories that we live by
however, the system can not be defined

because the limit as time approaches infinity is infinite
Or indeterminate

It is beyond our measure
all this world can bring

and the one measure most of us look for is love
or some other aspect derived from Love, Power, Respect

and some search for serenity
some search for sanity
some search for good
some search for God
some search for easy
some search for why
some search for answers

some search for meaning

the unexamined life is not worth living,

right?

but first we ensure our survival
which gives us food, safety, and shelter as our top priorities before we can begin to bring meaning

I am a human
I am a fortunate human
well I’m a human who has food, safety and shelter
I don’t need to fight for food
I don’t need to fight for a home
I don’t need to fight for my life

I am alive,
Survival is no longer my quest, at least not for today

Although the survival of my genetic material and reproduction becomes a goal

We continue to fight, for land, for food, for resources, for power
for influence
to extend our ideas
our lives
to become transcendent

to live
to breathe
to expand

Paint a Picture

I'll paint a picture of me
You'll paint a picture of you
I'll like what I'll see
We'll see if it's true
Can this really be?

I'll paint a picture of you
you'll paint a picture of me
One of us will say, "I love you"
The other will hesitate and say,
"I love you too"
We'll smile and kiss
until one day I'll miss

I miss you
I miss you too
No, you hang up
What's the hold up?
I'll paint a picture of you

You'll paint a picture of me
It'll be a picture of two

They'll be jealous of us

We'll make promises we hope to keep
some we will
some we won't
but I promise you I never meant to hurt you

I'll paint a picture of us
You'll paint a picture of us
but one day
I love you won't be enough
It'll be the way you said it
And I won't believe you anymore
I won't think you meant it

Painting makes you believe in make believe.

Then I'll be busy
Painting a picture of you
while you’re painting a picture of me
But it's no longer us
Because there's no longer trust
And you'll be busy
painting a picture of you
and I'll be busy
painting a picture of me
that I won't want anybody to see


it's not you, it's me
it's not me, it's you

until I find someone
that can understand
I don't want to paint a picture of you
I don't want to paint a picture of me

I just want to be
but I'm busy
Painting a picture of you
You're painting a picture of me
some made up fantasy
for the world to see.

Serenity Prayer [Adapted]

...Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, this world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that time will make all things right
if I surrender, but stay true

That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy
Forever

A letter that is written but never sends

Sometimes
The people that are closest
don't seem close at all

feel like they're watching
waiting for me to fall
they don't understand
that sometimes I don't make the call

25 years
but it seems like a century
a story that never ends
a path that never bends
a fence that never mends

a letter that is written but never sends
is like a life that never begins and never ends

but all men must die
we'll pretend we're not scared

we quickly find our pair
while I'm listening to the snare

off the beat
while I off the beat
stomp my feet

you think I'm messing up
but I swear that is how it is
supposed to go

listening to the sound
listening to the flow

I play until I get lost
I play until I get lost in the music
I play until I get lost in the flow
I play until I get lost in the moment

until the guitar riff would make a sane man sick

I can't stop listening
I can't stop playing

it's late
in the song now

I doubt anybody made it up to here
Nobody is really listening to what I'm saying

What I'm spraying
as notes, and chords
dischords
chirping out of me

It's an enigma my enemy

you're mystery is a friend of me

you're barely somebody that I used to know

and I know love hurts

cliche after cliche
clash after clash
dash after dash
pass after a pass

it's a mess I must confess
but I digress
it's all just a test to figure out the best
separate from the rest

sometimes
the people that are closest
know you better than you
sometimes
the people you never meet
know you best

Einstein Quote

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  -Albert Einstein

Source

Run Until It Rains

I'm going to run until it rains
You can dance until it gets dark

I'll be here for you now
One day you'll grow old
One day you can grow old with me

We used to play hide and seek in the dark
but now we swim until there's lightning

I'm going to run until it rains
You can dance until it gets dark

As we grow old I want to get younger everyday
I'm here for now
You can grow old with me

Growing taller everyday
Sometimes I like it
Sometimes I don't

Be careful of the trees
It is about to rain

I'm going to run until it rains out
You can dance until it gets dark

I'll be at the park
But I'm going to be honest
it's getting dark
winter is far away
but the darkness controls the mind

I watch people racing to red lights
just to get ahead

Sometimes I feel like there's a stranger in my head
Sometimes I feel like I'm stranger than all my friends

One day I'm gonna wake up

I'm not going to be able to run until it rains
so I race to red lights
chasing around these red and blue balloons

This rift
between my expectations and my reality
the long division leads me to believe
that leaks and losses and too much lobbying

confusion
osmosis diffusion

I just want to run until rains
Watch the water go down the drains
keep running through the aches and pains

Dance until it get dark out

watch the sun rise
and the stars collide
but still get a full night sleep
insomnia's dilemma

watch the water and the moon
live life on life's terms
life's dilemmas
life's grooves,
life's nooks,
life's crannies

Sometimes I like it
Sometimes I don't

But somedays I like to run until it's rained out
Dance until the sun comes up
Gaze beyond the first three stars

Grow old but get younger everyday

Face my fears
My fears I face

Close my eyes so I can walk in the dark
Obliviously living Oblivious in an Oblivion

Blur of life
Bluff of the past
Fluff of the Future
How quick
How fast did the day go
Where did the meter go

Playing outside
Playing in a play that I was never after
All I wanted was the love, family, friends and laughter

One day I thought I could never amount to anything
I was stuck inside the past
a past me
a past her
an idea

The idea of you is clearly fading away in figments
Leaks, Unasked questions

Confusion, Contusion, Twisting and Contorting my thoughts
Isolines in the sand, isolines in my mind
isolating all these isolating incidents that happen in a spectrum
and specieating species of new ideas and concepts
specializing in speculating on speculative and sporadically changing suspicions of superiority
but inferiority drives us

we want to be rebels
so we race until it rains
dance until its dark
fight in the forest
figure shit out after its done
set it up
knock it down

cleaning up garbage
cause you don't want to leave a mess
When I start to stress, I digress
but never regress
Cause the grass is too green
and I can look up high in the sky

and see the red and blue balloons
Floating
I wonder if the lightning will strike
I see all these people running in the rain
Barefoot

Banging around in the thunder
I wonder

I wonder
I'm just gonna run until it rains
and go inside when it thunders
I just want to escape
I do not care about the blunders

These blinders are blocking me
from the red and blue balloons
splashing down as the rain hits my pillow

But I think of a weeping willow
and I wonder if we can withstand
years of yelling and blatant manipulation

can we withstand it all
can we turn a blind eye on a brother
on a friend, on a cousin, on a lover?
a blind eye to those that do us wrong

can we make ourselves believe that what they are doing is right
but I just want to go left

and two wrongs don't make a right
but three lefts do

Sometimes i wake up and I don't want to put on a shoe
I don't want to lift a finger
I feel like I'll just hinder
so I linger

bur I just go left foot, right foot
set my feet, get up
and go

I'm living in Heaven
but so many people think this is hell
and I think you're an angel
leading me

through hell

It's the dark side that we all can abide by
It's the light that scares us the most
our eyes can't adjust
so we we wear sunglasses to protect us from the waves
we were sun tan lotion to protect us from the waves
we stand still
we stand strong
to protect us from the waves

But look at me I'm just following these red and blue balloons in the sky
I'm gonna go to the beach, I'm gonna go to the park
and I'm going to run until it rains.
So I can dance until it gets dark out
Keep on running until the sun comes up

Some of My Favorite Maya Angelou Quotes

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation."

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'"

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”

“I've learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life'.”

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

“I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.”

"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

"While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated."

"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

Paperback Writer - Beatles

Feast of Freedom

The Feast of Freedom

What does this mean?
Why on this night do we eat?

What is this all about?
Why on this night do we eat?

What are the laws that govern us?
How different is this night from all other nights?

We were...
They dealt harshly with us and oppressed us

They paid back in evil the kindness

We cried out
Does anyone know of our suffering?

But at ease my soul
Promise sustains us
Hear our plea in every generation

What will save us from their hands?
With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm?

With signs and wonders?
I am not a messenger.
With the awesome power?
Of divine?
Of divine revelation

Pass over our dwellings and redeem us
In every generation.

You shall tell your children on that day.
It is because of what they did for me.

From slaverly to freedom
From freedom to exile
From darkness to light
From light to darkness
From enslavement to redemption?

Next year may we celebrate
Next year
If it still stands there
Built again?

Rebuilt.

Burn by Ellie Goulding + Lana Del Rey + Biggie - EDITED VIDEOS

Eye of the Tiger

"Eye of the tiger
Thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rivals
Last Known Survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
and he's watching us all
with the eye of the tiger"

I've got the Eye of the tiger
I love the thrill of the fight
I rise up to the challenge of my rivals
I'm not the last known survivor
and I won't stay up all night
unless i have to
but I'll watch you until
you fall, weak in the knees

cause
I've got the eye of the tiger
they could call me Rocky now
just not ASAP and definitely
not like the pebbles,
but more like a rolling rock in the wind
i don't quit till i win

eye of the tiger
i love the thrill of the fight
and i might not stop until you are out of of my sight

face to face, out in the heat
hanging tough, staying hungry
they stack the odds till we take to the street
for we will
with the skill to survive

may the odds be ever in your favor

i don't always float like a butterfly
i don't always sting like a bee

but i know the shit in the world that i've been through
cause
I see

face to face, rarely does a man come face to face with me
i look them in the eyes and they quickly look away
they don't want to take their chances.

crazy eyes
crazy legs
rolling eyes, disguise, realize

but when they do
i don't fight with fists like i used to
i fight with words like an emcee, an artist, a poet

a painter
a blank canvas everyday

they tried to shut me down
shut me up

but i can't quit
stay up all night
listening to the same beat
patiently waiting for a track to explode on
cause i can't quit
until my shit is legit
got all these people around me acting as if

as if what?

and you think i care if you are
rising up
back on the street
I did my time, I took my chances
I went the distance and I'm back on my feet
but I'm just a man with his will to survive

cause im a survivor
child of destiny

as long as i know how to love
i know i'll stay alive
gloria gaynor

used to the run the rocky steps,
it was a daily routine since 18, chubby white boy on the scene

So many times, it happens,
too fast
but you trade your passion for glory
don't lose grip on the dreams of the past
you must fight just to keep them alive

cause I've got the eye of the tiger
i love the thrill of the fight
sometimes for the principles
sometimes to prove my might
i used to fight to prove i was right
sometimes for the money
sometimes for the pride
but mostly just to put my dukes up and fight
but im not a blue devil
im a quaker

now i fight to stay alive
now i fight to keep my life
some say survival of the fittest
but really its the survival of the wittiest
survival of the renaissance man
blood sweat and tears
you did not create me,
how could you doubt me?
xzibits never gonna say my name
but pride is the sign of a foolish man

it's a pity how people can judge you a in city
judge you in a jiffy
quick as a minute
lickety split, before they lick their lips
im outta here like kenny the jet smith
jason terry, the way i jet when i gotta
cause its fight or flight
and im willing to do both

been sucker punched so many times
my jaw hurts
so i wear sunglasses cause at least they'll hurt their hand more
while people are running their mouths
they don't know that fifty would break their face
cause all these people are living in glass houses
and still throwing stones

filled with the innocuous, but here in America it's in God we trust
but some days it feels like this city is
filled with the shitty
and they see you in the middle of little Italy
with two girls by your side
and some guy speaks some language that they don't think you understand

big pun said, "dead in the middle of little Italy little dide we know that we riddle some middlemen who didn't do diddly"

but ive been in the middle of Roma, i can't call it my home-a, but i've read homer and i love watching the simposons, doh

and i know on the ides of march julius caesar was stabbed in the back
et tu brute?

some people think they can do it with brute force

for some people it's a decision
some people will listen to this and think im trying to incite violence
some people will listen to this and think im trying to incite silence
but nobody is really listening
they just identify, deny and move on

i just want people to live, to be,
i just want people to be free to live however they wanna be

i might not understand the words that you say
i might understand the words that are coming out of my mouth

but i know how you said it
but i don't know how I said it
i don't know how you are going to misinterpret, misconstrue, misconceive every notion
like a potion
and all we do is substitute
and pick out magic potion, our poison that gives us some fix
our substituion of poisions that when we put it in the mix
whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger
but why is it that evertyhing that kills me makes me feel alive?
maybe its the adrenaline rush
as i live my life i can think that i crush it
or i can by a crusher and crush it
but take your time don't rush it
it's the foreplay, the expectations, the inciting invitation

and you're lucky there are ladies in my company
because you'll regret what you said
no not the end of your life
maybe not in this lifetime
and maybe not in the next

but i love it when people push their baby carriages into the middle of the street
did they ever think that maybe if they were walking on that street
the car could easily run over their feet
but nah we're busy looking down
looking around, looking up looking left looking right, but we're never really seeing

we're never really seeeing all we can
be all that you can be
in the army
there's no i in army but there is a me
and we all do what we can to get by
we all do what we can to be

to be or not to be
there's no question, macbeth
there's no self-harm, but there is self pity
and it's shitty how pitiful we can make it be
when we dig ourselves in a hole and we refuse to stop digging

it's like we're digging our own ditch
with a hitch, not a match maker
it's a sinch, if you clear your mind
you can clear your conscience
and it's a science how some people can con you
but it's a science how some people can trust you
and it's applied mathematics how emphatic i am
on each syllable, on each syllabus of knowledge that i possess

i don't spit for the fame
i don't spit for the forture
i don't spit because i went to college
i spit because i feel like spitting
i feel like sptting some little iota of knowledge
cause maybe one person can relate
and they can say shit
maybe this person undertands
and i hope i do
but i can't walk a mile in your shoes
im stuck in these mocassins
these rockasins, these raisins in the sun

sitting here all spring
festering like an open wound?

what happens to a dream deferred?
i always ask langston hughes
and he's always got the same answer
it either impolode or it can explode

i'm not gonna put you to sleep
you're busy rolling in the deep
but for today

i'm just gonna sing you a lullaby
line by line
sign by sign
everyday of your life
rhyme by rhyme

you'll be remembering something
maybe something more than the dreams of our fathers

probably not the words that i said
cause sometimes i have the tendency
to spit it too fast
so i slow it down for you
so you can understand the words coming out of my mouth

right now i'm a fountain of youth
but one day this'll all be gone
looks fade
years pass

but i won't stop rising to the challenge of my rival
i'll have a  cane and i'll still be ranting and raving
speaking softer than now but carrying a bigger stick like Roosevelt
from the FDR drive to Rodeo drive
from the great wall of china to the old Berlin wall
I wanna see the world
I wanna see it all

rambling about Einstein, and this paradigm
shordinger's cat,
more like dr. seuss's cat in a hat

and thought experiment that can change your life
Wittgenstein and his wittiness and his willingness not to give a shit
about all the metaphysical bull shit
his willingness to try to explain the power of words by showing they were meaningless

if i know one thing, i know nothing
said Socrates

but i'm busy just staring at a cave
call me a circle, a square or a triangle
you can mold me into infinite
i'm like play do
but no not Plato
im just a Platonic form

im sick of all you ass kissers
wishing you could kiss someones ass
when you know what they really want you to do

im sick of all the brown nosers
but i remember when someone explained to me
what that meant
man his ego was soo large
i don't know how it fit in the room
his head was so big it was like a damn balloon
it was funny when i saw it pop 10 years later
the shit eating smirk on his face evaporated like water on a hot rock
or a drop of water on a sizzling car engine.

and he asked me a silly question
he asked a 12 year old a question
and he called us names
names that you should of lost tenure for
you piece of royal shit
it's legit
that i won't stop spitting
until i quit
and i got a long way before i retire
and nobody can fire me from this job

i can put you in fits
with the way that i can assassinate the alphabet

people come up to me and tell me they're a lyrical assassin
while they are busy passing
passing me the mic
passing me the beat
passing me the l
to hell with that

passing up on the words that they are thinking but unable to say

but im a renegade, never been afraid to say whats on my mind at any given time a day, but ill never be jay and ill never be eminem, ill never be easy e, ill never be andre from outkast, but i dont wanna be

i just wanna be
but i got restraint,
cause sometimes you gotta pick your spots,
pick your shots, sitting their waiting in silence
biggie says dont you know bad boys act in silence and violence

but im more like a monk
but i talk too much
but i try to
act in silence in peace
thats all i really want
but i just got so much on my mind

if you are a lyrical assassin, then when it's your turn you're not passing
ive busy giving up food, im fasting
so when i wanna speak
i speak with purpose
a reason
i found a reason for me
to change who i used to be
but im not hoobastank

because when i start stuttering
that's when i really get muttering
pass the ketchup and mustard
cause i could start making this fancy
just put on a different beat
make it a trance beat, dub step, one step, two step
mamba number 5, tango
i'll dance to whatever
but everybody knows it takes two to tango

or ask the DJ to throw on
on an old song, so when the dj throws it on
and we can leave here tonight
and wake up
and i hope hopefully she's got some teeth
obie
obie trice
obie won canobi
the force is strong with this one

to be or not to be

i'm a gamling man, im a rambling man
spit these words straight off my head
feed my ego
through my fingers onto a computer screen
but i really just want to scream

but this is an outlet for me to get rid of
the demons inside

the eye of the tiger
the lion that fights inside of me
the spirit within
the feeling i get when you don't stop fighting even after you win

but Eminem says theres a certain feeling you get when you're real and you spit and people are feeling your shit
but that feeling won't arise for me
because i can't quit, my mind still rolls on
like a rolling thunder chasing the wind / live

like i've got some kind of eye of the tiger
i love the thrill of the fight
i rise up to the challenge of my rivals

and i'm not the last known survivor
because i can't find a tone
a consistent flow
and nobody is every going to throw a white boy a bone
cause i tell stories, i spit shit, i spit nonsensical nonsense
irrational thoughts that are so irrational

and i wont stalk you at night
but big brother is always watching you
he's watching us all, 1984

with the eye of the tiger

it's the thrill of the fight
and then then the mix up man throw on the next

next song
"Stop the Violence" by Boogie Down Productions.

Biggie vs. Born To Die by Lana Del Rey

Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

Preface to The Second Edition, Elegant Universe, Brian Greene

"...A book about the challenges and triumphs of the modern question for the deepest laws of nature is not something you imagine breezing through at the beach, or curling up with just before going to sleep. And a book that takes on such an abstract subjection with the intention of emphasizing the science, not the scientific personalities or historical anecdotes, might seem to cater to an even smaller audience. But this didn't particularly trouble me, as I told myself frequently (and, no doubt, with a tinge of melodrama) that if I reached one person, introducing them to a new spectrum of ideas, a new way of thinking about themselves and their place in the cosmos, that would be enough."

"I used to..."

I used to,

I used to like facebook when there weren't ads,
I used to like youtube when there weren't ads,
I used to like google when there weren't ads,
I used to like radio when there weren't ads,
I used to like tv when there weren't ads,
I used to like movies when there weren't commercials,

I used to like education when there wasn't advertisements (buy my textbook, go on this website, get this scholarship, take out this loan)

I used to fully believe in capitalism when there were meaningful advertisements, I used to like almost everything when there was not advertisements getting in the way, but when you realize that your surroundings are creating a 30 second to 2 minute attention span, that's when I realized that "I used to" isn't gonna cut it, and I'd rather say its gonna be, not it's gotta be just yet, but its gonna be...

How far can laizzez-faire take us? Are we just getting lazy because we want the world to be fair?

But to lose the meaning underlying capitalism is where this -ism just like any other -ism becomes dangerous. All -isms can be dangerous. All memes can be dangerous.

Remember this -ism's underlying message is individuality and competition not who can make the most money. Money is a means to an end not an ends to a mean.

Are we walking advertisements or are we human beings that have thoughts and feelings? Are we emotionless, stoics or are we painters, artists and poets?

"Money isn't all you need, but it helps" - says the laughing upper middle class. But if you are never happy with the amount that you have, when will you ever really reach your pursuit of happiness? Why aren't life and liberty enough?

Is the company doing xyz because they want you as a user or because they want you as an advertisement? Are they trying to change the world for the better or are they trying to do whatever they can to get money to put food on the table? Or are they trying to make just enough money to buy the new Mercedez, BMW, Rolls Royce, Maserati, or Bugatti? Does it matter? What are we actually talking about?

Would it really be that great if you woke up in a new Bugatti or any other brand spanking new car? Would it even matter? Would you take a selfie and send it on snapchat to all your friends and then post it to fb and twitter and instagram? But then what? Let me take another selfie?

If you are searching for money you can find it, you just have to keep working hard. Work hard for the money or continue trading your pride for bribes.

If you are trying to change the world, then what?

"If you wanna change the world, first you have to change yourself?" Well what if you don't see many around you changing?

Do you just keep on living surrounded by businessmen, liars, cheats. financial advisors, delusional entrepreneurs, judgmental lawyers, loony judges, biased scientists, blind optimists, pessimists?

But then you realize, what's the big deal?

You can't take life too seriously, you don't get out alive.


So you live a full life, you either work for the man or you are the man. You either work for yourself or you perpetuate the plan? I doubt it. Just keep on going... until I'm 120...

Life is what you make of it. So live in the infinite or live in the ephemeral, it doesn't matter, as long as you're living.. one day at a time, one moment at time, one second.

Live life on life's terms...
Play the game by the rules, but if you have to break them know that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.

One Day

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

Am I gonna make it?

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

Am I gonna fake it?

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

of you putting on your makeup

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

They say I'm jaded

They say i'm faded

they say I'm elated

I say you're belated

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

of you putting on your makeup

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

of you

Changing Through Space Time

Living my life one day at at ime

Changing Through Space and Time

Line after Line

Sign after Sign

it doesn't even matter the words I say

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

of you putting on your makeup

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

that I'm gonna make it

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

I'm not gonna fake it

One Day

One Day

One Day

I'm gonna make it

Changing Through Space and TIme

I think of you

When you're on my mind

Line after Line

Sign after Sign

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

One Day I'm gonna wake up

[Whistle Interlude]
// gonna be electric guitar SOOOOON (one day)

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

that I'm gonna make it

One Day
I'm gonna wake up and think of you putting on your make up

One Day
I'm gonna think of me

One day I'm gonna think of her

putting on her makeup

Will the idea of you disappear

it isn't clear

they say have no fear

One day I'm gonna wake up and think

One Day i'm gonna wake up

[Musical Interlude #2]

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think

One day I'm gonna wake up and think of you putting on your makeup

One Day I'm gonna wake up and think