“Our hearts long to trust and be trusted.” Karl Jaspers.
What is the human world without trust? It is a world of lies and deceit that has lost its common purpose. Only in sharing the truth can there be trust. Without trust there can be no hope, no true happiness.
Every one of us seeks trust. If we feel we can no longer find it in our leaders or institutions, we must seek it out in each other. It is there we will find trust, hope and happiness.
When trouble comes an immediate aggressive reaction such as an emotionally driven attack often appears to be a satisfyingly vengeful, moral or honourable response.
Alternatively, assessing risk and acting accordingly makes good sense, responding mindfully and proportionately. Maybe a change to your behaviour, a tweak of an existing plan. Maybe putting your head down for a while, keeping your nose clean, waiting for things to blow over before again checking the lie of the land.
So, try to take a breath, just a moment, weigh up the immediate consequences. We all have to survive to achieve anything.
The longer term strategic approach may not harm your perceived opponent in the moment, cover you in glory or restore your honour. However, it may well deliver the most satisfying and right outcome for the future accompanied by enduring benefits.
Mr Trump, how smart are you really? Making America Great Again appears to have been a smart and useful local catchcry for getting elected to power in the present. It will mean nothing if you don't choose to work with other global leaders to save the whole planet for the future!
If he, she or they can choose to do something pleasing or satisfying, it is quite likely that you can choose to do something pleasing or satisfying too.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
Why watch virtual stuff when you could be out in the real world enjoying a real activity or applying your own creativity – and probably having more fun while you do?
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
Friendship is like oxygen.
Photography days #18.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
Like paper to the wind
my thoughts I scatter here
unable to rescind
I let them travel where
I know not what they’ll achieve
succeed with or accomplish
I fear they’ll find readers
with care only to admonish
then there is the question
why bother anyway?
so many smarter and stupider minds
have so much more to say
and louder voices
because they so often agree
to speak their thoughts
only to celebrity
a different purpose is theirs
to be heard no matter what
without the necessity
of thinking intelligently
of sharing something
of value they have got
I speak simply
of observations
of thoughts I mull over
instead
I speak of imagery
of the wonders of earth
that crowd
inside my head
The sun is a furnace around which we orbit. It sits in space 152 million kilometres away, providing just enough heat to keep our planet and its inhabitants alive. Every time I recognise this fact I have the same response – what are the chances? WOW!
In the not too distant future
things will begin to disappear
human things
cultural things
things like genuine creative work
design, construction, music, literature, imagery, art
and
not much later
human well-being
Instead
they will be by-passed
replaced by data mined
composites
of all these things
that went before
--------------------------------
Concepts and constructs
developed by
any human individual
are exclusively
part of
the human condition:
..... human creativity
Such human
processes and creation
are
being systematically
misappropriated
for the purpose
of
profiteering
by mere replicants
for mere replication
to satisfy
uncontrolled
greed
and
aspirations
of the few
at the expense
of
the many
This application of AI
is not good for
individual human
health or well-being
This application of AI
is not good for
societal
health or well-being
This application of AI
will undermine
the survival of
human
civilisation
This is not likely
to be a road
from which humanity
can return
General Intelligence
is the next stop
Where humanity will be asked
either politely or forcibly
to get off the bus
….. walk toward the mirage
….. and disappear into it
I see the human condition as a comedy in which all of us take our part. We project or suppress our characters, we deliver our lines, we wish to entertain, we endeavour to engage with our audiences as we perceive they want us to, we offer intrigue by often thinking other than we act. We consider our individual lifelong performances to be important and then we die. The joke is really on us.
Let memento morte inspire you to a life of health.
Let carpe diem motivate you to enjoy life’s wealth.
Once upon a time there was an original idea. A creature somewhere on earth had a thought. Even more significant that thought was acted upon and something new happened. Are there still original ideas? Maybe every thought is original because its origin is always within a new person, at a new point in time and space.
To read is to take a universe inside you where every answer to every question becomes valid, where every place is real.
To read is to activate voices inside you never before heard,
where before only a small world existed without another’s words, new worlds are created for you to engage and experiment with.
If you don’t know you won’t know without stories from any author’s pen. How to be happy with someone else’s laughter, sad with their pain. Turn another page to live many other lives again and again, again and again
rather than complain loudly, question quietly with determination
The simple pleasures are the experiences you appreciate with minimal external inputs.
To live simply is to lead a life uncomplicated by unnecessary things.
I use writing to try to interpret the world around me and understand it better.
I use photography to try to see the world in new ways.
When there is nothing worth doing
But doing itself
Do
A summary of Karl Jaspers’ writing, “Sunk in the noise of nationalism and technology, people become intellectually and emotionally stifled, stuck. The crowd rules. Slogans and rhetoric pass for meaningful conversations”. Marietta McCarthy, How philosophy can save your life. Penguin Australia 2009.
What have we learnt? A German survivor of the first and second world wars, Jaspers was an early 20th century philosopher. He still speaks to us with relevance, as if alive today. Nationalism is destructive. Those who seek advantage through manipulating others naive enough to follow blindly, to adopt the slogans of ill considered electronic media and rally to the flags of puppet masters – will be perpetrators of great harm.
However, Jaspers was not without hope. “Amidst discussion, a silence is possible in which people may listen together and hear the truth.”
Are we still able to effectively hear the truth, to discover and explore the scant remaining silence? Or have we sunk so deep into the swamp of nationalism and the noise of technology to be beyond positive, constructive, truth seeking communication?
It was the idea I loved. But, first came the words. The words were, “A winding track.” The words became the idea. The idea developed.
The idea of a two wheel dirt track ahead. It winds up a wooded hillside in the golden hour of late afternoon. This romantic winding track, no destination in sight, no point of origin, beckons. It’s mystery entices.
So, I now find myself travelling this track. I’m leaving things behind and I am excited by the unknown destination ahead. I am savouring the journey.
Savouring, now there’s a word! A word to savour. A word begets an idea, begets a reality.
Ah, here is the real joy, the savouring. The pleasure in the journey, the exciting anticipation of getting there. Wherever there may be.
Human: sustenance, shelter, family, worthy work, friendships and creative cultural experiences.
Choose a place to still your body and a restless mind. Sit. Start by observing all that is going on around you. Hear the background noises. Examine the occupants, textures and colours of the physical surroundings. Feel the movement and temperature of the air. Take your time. Acknowledge and appreciate these things. Once you have paid them their due. Let them go.
Look into your mind. Question the constant restlessness of your thinking. How important is it for this moment? Work your way through your thoughts, shedding all that are not essential to your being here and now. Settle any disturbing waves of turbulence to a calm pool within.
Breathe, slow and deep. Find your own rhythm.
Place yourself exclusively in this moment and space. Stay for as much time as you need. Peacefully, refresh and reset.
Advertising seduces me into ever wanting more. Advertising leaves me wanting.
Nature arouses in me the need to belong, experience and explore. Nature fulfils these needs and more.
How is it we can perceive acquisition of things as necessary to our wellbeing, but continue to feel deprived of a sense of wellbeing when we acquire things? Why does this disconnect exist? Where does it come from? What is it that we really need or want?
When is thinking more important than things? Other than when things are required to do good work, maybe all the time?
Ah, but what exactly is good work ….. ?
I love it when you are reading a book, no matter how good it is, and you come to a blank page. This is because as you turn that empty page you are quickly one page closer to the end than you thought. One page closer to the sweet anticipation of finding and starting your next book.
Cold, wind, sleet, sun, rain, wood chopping, fire, magpie release, novel reading, photo learning, koala watching, glass and nail collecting, vegmite roll, tea, miso, water, Coca Cola, salad roll, apple, banana, writing, poetry, improving news, art, music and a photo a day.
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