tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108734392009-11-10T08:18:57.840-05:00In the beginning there was chaos and it had thong in its title which is the mode of those who will assume any position for the sake of their hit counter. Pithing Contest yields to the resurgence of the original title albeit in an odd translation.GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.comBlogger749125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-63980019086714557262009-11-08T12:03:00.001-05:002009-11-08T12:04:54.978-05:00

A perspective exercise:How would you speak to the people in your life if, whenever you spoke, you could keep in mind the possibility that these were the last words you would ever get to say to them?

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-18148597568192335012009-10-20T19:03:00.001-05:002009-10-20T19:04:49.875-05:00

All spiritualities are created equal. But you may discriminate among religions by the body counts they have amassed.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-53921906392233155142009-09-12T09:46:00.002-05:002009-09-12T09:58:51.441-05:00

Obstacles to our happiness abound. The best work of our lives is in setting aside, going around or just seeing through these impediments. The abiding condition that seals happiness into a visible but unreachable dimension outside our plane of existence is our own character.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-48333389815930124762009-09-08T07:58:00.002-05:002009-09-08T08:01:43.602-05:00

Our anger is the sword of justice that may glint menacingly when brandished but turns to dust when we finally start thrusting it at someone.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-69279613752231799012009-08-30T17:22:00.002-05:002009-08-30T17:33:16.729-05:00

measuring your security by your pile of possessions, feeling like you will have years in proportion to your wealth...that is the moral equivalent of our coccyx or our appendix. It is a holdover from an animal's life where generations were unimagined and the future extended seconds or minutes forward from the crawling minute hand of NOW.The creatures that live more in imagined time than now [

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-2371347643180713582009-08-25T06:58:00.004-05:002009-08-25T10:21:20.617-05:00

Why are these sociopathic displays only found on pick-up trucks? Don't other vehicles have back windows? There is plenty of glass on the back of a Prius, for instance.Patriarchy has its roots in insecurity. To me it seems to be a strain in our culture that revolves around countering its inner fears by projecting menace and the ability and willingness to degrade and instill fear in others.How

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-15560681305133520862009-08-18T20:54:00.002-05:002009-08-18T21:01:05.886-05:00

When you ponder whom your actions might offend, you are looking toward and arranging your future.When you ponder who has offended you, you are looking toward and arranging your past.Some do both. Many get stuck on just one of those tracks. The future is all that remains of your life. As you move forward through life, which way are you looking?

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-57469339635469965302009-07-19T17:54:00.003-05:002009-07-20T07:47:46.634-05:00

One of my very favorite bits of wisdom might be called trite based on how many can recite it:“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.”And on how many think they can recite it.I like Twain's original much better. I also adapt it for my own "live as if..." advice.Since yesterday turned out not to be your last

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-29146773540876205922009-07-12T22:14:00.001-05:002009-07-12T22:16:06.542-05:00

How many lies have you told because YOU did not want to hear the truth [or the truth that would come back at you]?

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-31785580534757987842009-07-02T18:03:00.001-05:002009-07-02T18:05:49.736-05:00

They say you only use about ten percent of your mind.I say the other ninety percent uses you.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-7276874938937389862009-06-07T13:09:00.003-05:002009-06-07T13:32:35.519-05:00

The recognized, and sometimes accepted, excuse for bad behavior: "I'm only human" is like a tarp. You can toss it over only so much junk before it ceases to disguise what it covers. If a person has simply lost their temper they will later have some regret. For such outbursts, apologies and forgiveness may be exchanged. But when someone blasts away in a fluent flurry of rage and later says

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-25057216168225592862009-06-03T06:56:00.003-05:002009-06-03T07:32:26.892-05:00

Whenever someone enabled by their wealth to do such things, buys more of the limited and exhaustible necessities than they need, be it land, water, food, fuel or whatever, they bid the price of those resources out of reach of someone else who was on the verge of not affording the bare minimum.  That power to diminish well being is not the advertised face of wealth.   Less altruistic behavior is a

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-20669553010068588652009-05-28T18:29:00.002-05:002009-05-28T19:05:08.055-05:00

Teens, an artificial grouping if you use it to categorize by maturity,  are reputed to have achieved nearly instant trend propagation.  That is not news and the four commentaries don't declare it to be.  The speed of propagation is generally attributed to whatever speed the available media supports...I agree.   But no one addresses the question of why, of what might make this pattern so universal

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-79933464430022665042009-05-22T22:02:00.001-05:002009-05-22T22:04:13.590-05:00

Idealism without strategy is a sure recipe for disappointment. Idealism and greed are the estranged children of hope.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-82861137459112295272009-05-21T17:41:00.004-05:002009-05-21T17:55:45.527-05:00

If the world were perfect, I could leave it.  Alas!  There is so much to put right.  I will have to have progeny because I sure won't solve all the problems in my time or by myself.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-54460058706251269492009-04-24T16:44:00.001-05:002009-04-24T16:46:23.802-05:00

Any love that is not a dialogue is a delusion.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-10049345495673743642009-04-02T22:22:00.002-05:002009-05-21T17:59:44.090-05:00

Money is a shared delusion that some people should be more powerful than others, a mildly insane way to digitize exactly how much power you lack.Madoff was so cleverbut did he ever notice he never felt like he had enough?

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-63437953778150677942009-03-18T19:35:00.001-05:002009-03-18T19:37:12.133-05:00

When asking for trouble, raising your voice is seldom necessary.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-52466277102114895952009-03-10T19:52:00.002-05:002009-03-10T19:56:28.164-05:00

It is a blessed state to be so ignorant that you do not even know that you are poor...or it is a sublime achievement.  But if the latter, the IRS will do what it can to remind you of your attachments.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-60030247432761885172009-02-02T08:01:00.002-05:002009-02-02T08:17:14.171-05:00

From Lawrence KS, news of a celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday.When the right idea comes along, all those investments in the wrong ideas become liabilities. Ultimately the motivations for denial will be found in fear of new authority. That might be because of your experience with old authority. Trust me Kansans, its not about authority. If you insist on seeing modernity, science and

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-88574681550809049402009-01-27T14:25:00.003-05:002009-01-27T14:39:31.175-05:00

John Updike has died.Trying to make up meatier sentences about writing than Updike has already provided being presumptuous for most and stupid for me, I'll just pass along a few from his obituary:"It's always a push to get up the stairs, to sit down and go to work,” he told Time magazine in 1982. “You'd rather do almost anything, read the paper again, write some letters, play with your old dust

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-60427777886368749432009-01-20T08:46:00.002-05:002009-01-20T10:47:12.348-05:00

I think of our "conscience", our tendency to feel bad about trespassing our personal boundaries between good and evil as an evolved characteristic. It is a great shame that those boundaries are more learned artifacts than universal and derivable limits. The schooling that would enable us to derive the limits is formal and exacting while the schooling by which we commonly absorb our notions of

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-20983649313949126762009-01-18T12:51:00.001-05:002009-01-18T12:53:58.698-05:00

In intimate conversations, the more heated or discordant the discussion, the harder to be certain in any of the sentences who is the subject and who is the object...loves joke on us.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-90681300509044936942009-01-12T21:53:00.005-05:002009-01-13T08:52:27.046-05:00

A hopeful author and professional journalist, Jaimal Yogis, asked me if I would review his forthcoming book: Saltwater Buddha. I have to qualify any such reviewing. If you have read many of my posts, you may know better than I the quirks of my writing and ideas about religion. It turns out I am the one being done the favor because I thoroughly enjoyed the book and devoured it in one

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10873439.post-51243242868272134432009-01-08T20:40:00.001-05:002009-01-08T20:42:12.973-05:00

Excellence is the greatest rebellion.

GreenSmilenoreply@blogger.com0