Philosophy
Why, what's the point?
A Voyage and a Harbor - "As geographer Yi-Fu Tuan says, we require both shelter and venture. We need freedom and support, silence and cacophony, the vast and distant but also the warm and near, a voyage and a harbor, the great adventure and the hobbit hole. Much of the iconography of our times gives little sense of this."
Alex Can Spell - Not very long ago, Dr. Pepperberg began trying to teach Alex and another gray parrot, Griffin, to sound out phonemes, which are the sounds that letters and letter combinations represent...
Beware of Hypnotic Media - "Wake up, wake up — before you sign that seven-year contract, buy that house you don’t really want, marry that girl you secretly despise. Don’t reach for the whiskey, that won’t help you. You’ve got to think, to discriminate, to exercise your own free will and judgment."
Commitment is the Glue that Binds -
Concentrated Space Intensifies Everything - "A small, concentrated domestic space intensifies everything... It is almost more myself than I am."
Digging Your Toes - ..., it's about digging your toes into whatever ...
Digitally Thin - "There’s a feeling of thinness that I believe many of us grapple with working digitally. It's a product of the ethereality inherent to computer work."
Do We Really Mean What We Say -
Finding a Balance in Execution, Reflection and Articulation - On building tools, finding a balance in execution, reflection and articulation — and teaching others to find that balance, too.
First Find What's Truly Significant -
Frustration Between People in Creative and Non-creative Universes - "This I think is true, not just of writers, but of anyone who is in a creative space, that you have to reverse the normal human tendency, which is to edit. People in non-creative universes have exactly the opposite relationship to information ... They’ll see something and they’ll say "Is it relevant to what I'm doing?" And if it’s not they should push it aside and focus on what they’re kind of task is."
Genetic Determinism and Human Nature -
God made mud. God got lonesome. - The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Growing up... it never stops -
Haunted Until his Humanity Awakens - Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens. Blake
I Mourn the World in Which I Live -
I Tremble for my Species - I tremble for my species when I reflect / that god is just. Thomas Jefferson
Leaving Home - "Leaving home is a kind of forgiveness..."
Life is to be Lived, Not Controlled -
Lifestyle's Supports and the Difficulty of Understanding -
More Toward Realism than Fantasy -
Observational Learning - [Learning by watching] is called observational learning. When it comes to evolutionary fears, as well as to many other areas of learning, animals and people learn by watching what other animals or people do, not by doing something themselves and learning from the consequences. I have the impression this lesson hasn't quite been absorbed by most educators.
Or So I Feel - "To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
Others Choose the Path of Healing -
Our Three Brains - The lizard brain breathes, eats, and sleeps; the dog brain forms dominance heirarchies and rears its young. ... The human brain gets added on top of the dog brain. So you have your lizard brain to breathe and sleep, your dog brain to form wolf packs, and your human brain to write books about it.
Persistent and Ineradicable Instinct -
Playing and Learning and Loving -
Politics and the English Language -
Primary and Secondary Emotions - Your culture and upbringing teach you when to feel shame versus when to feel embarrassment or guilt, but all three start out in the brain as the pain of being isolated.
Proficiency in Knowledge of the World -
Scarcity -
Sincerity Itself is Bullshit -
Something Useful Can Be Artful -
That Ideas Should Freely Spread - If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
That's the Point of Emotions: Survival -
The Bottom Line - The bottom line is, do I have shelter and enough to eat. Everything else is optional. EVERYTHING! John Farr
The Credential of the Dominant -
The Value of Notebooks - "I never actually get around to reading them and using what I've written, but I do tend to reproduce the same thoughts later."
The Value of Time - "Don’t squander a single second. Perhaps, even more importantly, don’t waste time regretting the time you squander or lose."
There is Nothing a Man Will Not Do for Another -
Transcript of Barack Obama's Speech on Race and Politics - The following is a full transcript of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech on race and politics delivered in Philadelphia PA on March 18, 2008.
Waiting -
Writing From the Inside Out - "It takes a while - often years - for the writer to get to appreaciate his effect on others..."