Monthly Archive for January, 2011
Last Sunday’s 60 Minutes’ segment, Tucson: Descent Into Madness, on the recent shooting in Arizona airs an interview of two friends of Jared Loughner.
Their observations offer deeper insight into Jared Loughner. I’ll quote their main recollections below in case that link above doesn’t work.
What caught my attention was when they said how “Jared literally believes in nothing, nothingness”, and that “He was obsessed with how words were meaningless”. That comes awfully close to how I’d describe a Taoist. Indeed, that describes me, albeit without that worrisome “literally believes in nothing” and “obsessed with how words were meaningless”. Continue reading ‘Belief in Nothing is Dangerous’
I got to thinking today of how much more readily we accept the reality of optical illusions over ‘rational’ illusions. Is it because the optical ones are easier to spot? We have such deep seated faith in what we think.
Thinking is a sixth sense, you could say, but why do we trust this ‘thinking sense’ so deeply? From my “symptoms point of view” I would guess we trust it as deeply as we do because we need to. That is obvious I suppose; although it is funny how the obvious can so easily get overlooked. Continue reading ‘Illusions, Everywhere I Think’
This Science News piece, Many unhappy returns for wandering minds, packs a big punch for its small size. (It’s so short I’ll paste it below.) Science News and the Tao Te Ching are my two best resources for reducing the risk of ‘the blind spot’. Together, they offer point of view from opposite ends of the awareness spectrum. Each balances the other. Alone, either can mislead. Better yet, having an eye on both keeps my mind from wandering too far.
I have wondered at times why I’m such a stickler for what I call watchfulness (paying attention, mindfulness, seeing what I’ve not seen, being moment to moment, and so on). Frankly, all the common ‘spiritual’ reasons were too pie-in-the-sky for me. Continue reading ‘Wandering Mind Is Unhappy Mind’
Soon after we met, my future to be wife said, “I love you”. That moment had all the ideal romantic overtones one could ask for… us out in the forest, a moonlit summer’s night. Being the bubble busting bum of which I’m capable, I replied with something like, “What do you mean love? What’s love?” Frankly, the word had lost its “magic”, after being dumped by my ex-wife the year before (1).
This word has piqued my curiosity again, now that my sons are dating. The word love presents a good example of the iffy nature of words, names, and language over all. There are many words that are more or less synonymous with love. Continue reading ‘Love’
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