Monday, January 21, 2013

Block the Sound

God bless you, Uma Thurman.
My theory is, that when it comes about an important subject, there's only two ways a person can answer. Which way they choose tells it who that person is. For instance, there's only two kinds of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people. Now, Beatles people can like Elvis, and Elvis people can like Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere, you have to make a choice, and that choice tells it who you are.
-Mia Wallace, Pulp Fiction

Monday, January 14, 2013

Infinite Regress

SONDER


n. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. 

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Unrequited


Funny how I came across this old post from exactly three years ago HAHAHA so here's to everything, coming down to nothing. Didn't mean anyone then, don't mean anyone all the same.
I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said "Journeys end in lovers meeting." What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said "love is blind". Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space! Yes, you are looking at one such individual. And I have willingly loved that man for over three miserable years! The absolute worst years of my life! The worst Christmas', the worst Birthday's, New Years Eve's brought in by tears and valium. These years that I have been in love have been the darkest days of my life. All because I've been cursed by being in love with a man who does not and will not love me back. Oh god, just the sight of him! Heart pounding! Throat thickening! Absolutely can't swallow! All the usual symptoms.

-Iris Simpkins, The Holiday

Friday, January 4, 2013

Hereafter


Death sits in the chair across from me and watches.


Death sees, but has no eyes.


Death knows, but has no mind.


We often sit together in the night.


Death has one move left, I have none.


-A


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

God and Science


  • Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?
  • Student : Yes, sir.
  • Professor: So, you believe in GOD?
  • Student : Absolutely, sir.
  • Professor : Is GOD good?
  • Student : Sure.
  • Professor: Is GOD all powerful?
  • Student : Yes.
  • Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
  • (Student was silent.)
  • Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
  • Student : Yes.
  • Professor: Is satan good?
  • Student : No.
  • Professor: Where does satan come from?
  • Student : From … GOD …
  • Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
  • Student : Yes.
  • Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
  • Student : Yes
  • Professor: So who created evil ?
  • (Student did not answer.)
  • Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
  • Student : Yes, sir.
  • Professor: So, who created them ?
  • (Student had no answer.)
  • Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
  • Student : No, sir.
  • Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
  • Student : No , sir.
  • Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smell your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
  • Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
  • Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
  • Student : Yes.
  • Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
  • Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
  • Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
  • Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
  • Professor: Yes.
  • Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
  • Professor: Yes.
  • Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
  • (The lecture theatre became very quiet with this turn of events.)
  • Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
  • (There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
  • Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
  • Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
  • Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
  • Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?
  • Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
  • Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
  • Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
  • Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
  • Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
  • (The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
  • Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
  • (The class was in uproar.)
  • Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
  • (The class broke out into laughter.)
  • Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
  • (The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
  • Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
  • Student : That is it sir… Exactly ! The link between man and GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
  • That student was Albert Einstein.