After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth.
He who seeks Truth
Shall find BeautyHe who seeks Beauty
Shall find VanityHe who seeks Order
Shall find GratificationHe who seeks Gratification
Shall be DisappointedHe who considers himself as the servant of his fellow being
Shall find the joy of Self-ExpressionHe who seeks Self-Expression
Shall fall into the pit of ArroganceArrogance is incompatible with nature
Thru the nature of the universe
and the nature of man
we shall seek TruthIf we seek truth we shall find Beauty
– Moshe Safdie, Architect
Read this quote in an email a friend wrote and traced the source to a Dave Smalley. Fitting words for 2009: culture, education, economy, transportation, jobs – it all points to this:
The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.
— Dave E. Smalley
Fudenji – Tempio Zen
Do not care for happiness
nor escape unhappiness
– G. Leopardi
I misread the quote and thought it read like this:
Do not care for happiness
nor escape happiness
Hm, I do like that better. The meaning gains a spark, a lift by removing the negation. It becomes instantly brighter. Don’t run after it, but don’t run away from it either. I think I’ll claim that:
Do not care for happiness
nor escape happiness
– zenho
William Gibson
A MILLION SECONDS IS 11 DAYS
A billion seconds is 32 years.
A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.
I have crossed the 1,500,000,000 second threshhold. It looks like a lot and it feels like nothing.
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly.
Suddenly I awoke.
Now, I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly
dreaming that I am a man.
– Chuang Tzu (c.360 BC – c. 275 BC)
Here is a different translation:
I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly,
or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
