Ends and Means

02008-01-28 | Philosophy

Gaia Community | jhalifax’s Blog
Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war that we are fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Its an old dream.

It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.
– Wendell Berry

Deep insight.

Tales of Passion

02008-01-28 | Uncategorized

TED | Talks | Isabel Allende: Tales of passion (video)
In one of the most beloved talks from TED2007, novelist Isabel Allende talks about writing, women, passion, feminism. She tells the stories of powerful women she has known, some larger-than-life (listen for a beauty tip from Sophia Loren), and some simply living with grace, dignity and ingenuity in a world that, in too many ways, still treats women unjustly.

Wonderful talk. What a treasure she is!

Like Children

02008-01-28 | Uncategorized

Antaiji: Kodo Sawaki – To you
One guy loses the presidential election, so he cries.
Next time around he wins the election, and then he smiles into the camera.
What makes politicians different from little children anyway? It’s exactly the same way with a crying child: you offer him some candy and already a smile breaks out on his teary face.
A little more maturity would be nice.

Kodo Sawaki, teacher of the wonderful Kosho Uchiyama, who wrote Opening the Hand of Thought, never minces words.