Saturday, February 20, 2016
Paradox...............................
Nature is dynamic and haphazard, and so are we - not a serene combo. Maybe it's one that's best described in paradoxes such as organized chaos, but we're not beings who feel comfortable with paradox. Paradox tugs the brain in opposite directions, confounds our quest for simple truths, and throws a monkey wrench into the delight of habit. Faced with paradox, our brain automatically slaves to solve or squash it. And so here we find ourselves, disorderly beings, blessed or cursed with order-craving minds, in a disorderly universe we're fully capable of bringing increased order to - but not absolute order, and not forever.
-Diane Ackerman, The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us
Fifty years ago.............................
The Shadows of Night........................................................Gloria
On order.................................
In the spring of 1918, she volunteered as a nurse at King's County Hospital as a deadly flu epidemic spread through the city and the world. (More than 50 million people died of it between March 1918 and June 1920.) She began work at six each morning and worked twelve-hour days, changing linens, emptying bedpans, administering shots, enemas, and douches. The hospital was run like a military unit. When the head nurse entered the ward, the junior nurses stood at attention. "I like the order of life and the discipline. By contrast the life that I had been leading seemed disorderly and futile," she recalled. "One of the things that this year in the hospital made me realize is that one of the hardest things in the world is to organize ourselves and discipline ourselves."
-David Brooks, from his chapter Struggle, about Dorothy Day, in The Road To Character
A dangerous age..................
"We're at a dangerous age in our evolution as a species: clever, headstrong, impulsive, and far better at tampering with nature than understanding it."
-Diane Ackerman: The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us
Friday, February 19, 2016
Just a dream..........................
R.E.M.......................................................Losing My Religion
From your keyboard..................
...........................................to God's ears:
"In a world where the government is not empowered to micro-manage our lives, a Supreme Court nomination would be as interesting as naming the postmaster general."
One can only hope. Full post here.
The ever risky....................
..........confusion of correlation and causation.
Barron’s cover story this weekend asked, “Trump and Sanders: Are They Killing the Stock Market?”
If your preferred answer is "nope," read this.
Inside out...................................
There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Seek nothing outside of yourself.
Fifty years ago..........................
Lou Rawls..........................................Love Is A Hurtin' Thing
A man after my own heart...........
"Meanwhile, here is a quote from the middle of the last chapter (I started reading the book at the last chapter, and then I’ll go back and read the rest)."
Full post, previewing a review of The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism, is here
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Speaking of summertime...............
Janis Joplin.......................................................Summertime
To accomplish................................
"To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."
-Anatole France
Fifty years ago.......................
Bob Lind.......................................................Elusive Butterfly
Some days it's a toss-up..................
1. At day's first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that 'I am rising for the work of man.' Must I grumble at setting out to do what I was born for, and for the sake of which I have been brought into the world? Is this the purpose of my creation, to be here under the blankets and keep myself warm? 'Ah, but it is a great deal more pleasant!' Was it for pleasure, then, that you were born, and not for work, not for effort? Look at the plants, the sparrows, ants, spiders, bees, all busy at their own tasks, each doing his part towards a coherent world-order; and will you refuse man's share of the work, instead of being prompt to carry out Nature's bidding?
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Five
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