The carpenter story

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer- contractor of his plans to leave the house- building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career.

When the carpenter finished his work the employer came to inspect the house. He handed the front-door key to the carpenter.

“This is your house”, he said, “my gift to you”. The carpenter was shocked! What a shame!

If he had only known he was building his own, he would have done it all so differently. We do the most of the things having such thoughts in our mind. But we only realize when it comes back to us. So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then with a shock we realize we have to live in the house that we have built. If we could do it over, we'd do it much differently. But we cannot go back.

You are the carpenter. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Life is a do-it-yourself project, someone has said. Your attitudes and the choices you make today, build the house you live in tomorrow. Build wisely!

Swami Rama

You really do not need to know many things, but you definitely need to practice what you know. It is a sad thing to tell you, but I have not really learned anything new since I grew up. That which I learned in my childhood is what I have been practicing. 

After visiting hundreds of countries I have discovered that all over the world there is one great problem, and that problem is that the human being has not yet understood himself or herself, and tries, instead, to understand God and others.

--

(Book: Living with the Himalayan Masters)

...

Came across this today: You can't communicate complexity, only an awareness of it.


So., where does creativity come from? If its a constant work in progress with due diligence and asking questions, its not spontaneous. If its arising out of the subconscious out of the blue, what can you do to make it happen more frequently? Is it a trained mind perfected to repetitively ask basic questions which delivers more of this creativity? A few seconds pass by and it appears that thats what it must be. After all, if one isn't looking for anything in particular, why would you find anything which should be suitably particular? What does it mean to find something? For real.. if a cave man stumbles upon a diamond trove, how much of a consequent importance would he attach to it as opposed to finding a meal? Now say he finds a haystack and figures out its a better place to sleep on than a rock.


Even if these three situations arise out of finding something, they differ distinctly in terms of the outcome. They do so because they are associated with the needs and wants of the caveman. Creativity may not be something which one stumbles upon, though its very plausible for it to appear that way. If there is a need, desperate enough, it will happen. Which probably explains one side of why when a situation demands, a calm mind given some time, can come up with things. What it does not explain is how something is created out of nothing. But then again, as a wise friend once said, theres nothing called an invention, its discoveries all the way.
--
No body can convince you against your own will.

Come together - Right now - Over me

If you listen long enough, everybody makes sense.

Not necessarily because they are right or wrong, but because you understand them.

Predictably Irrational

Lazy.

Impractical.

Irrational.

Things of passion? Really?

What is it that makes us think? What is it that tickles our minds? What is it that inspires us?

Lack of regard for the healthy ineptitude of society? Lack of concern for the likes of an indelible mind? Or the spur of temporary imagination which provides an answer to a temporary issue amongst the things of passing tide? Can you dare to make the same choices again if you had the chance?

Is it really an answer we are actually looking for? Or is it a solution for life itself? What is it that we seek? World peace seems a joke at this juncture in an individualistic point of view.

Speaking of individualistic approach in life, somehow every learned person seems to have taken it. So appears that what defines a specific deed isn't really what an individual appreciates. Like these big words with complex meanings to what we define to be a life, you eventually ask 'does it matter?' If so, for whom? I had a pretty normal existence before I knew your complexities of life and how you defined them. So how do I care about my motherland without existential evidence ruining my thoughts of prosperity for her?

What will entertain me enough that a recession will not affect? How long will I keep doing things I find temporary solace in? Is it death I should look forward to? How do I find permanent completion?

Where is permanence in what I do?

Banter

Came across this today
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Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out. That observation was made by Raoul Vaneigem, Belgian Situationist philosopher. I wonder what Cioran would say about that.

There is an old Indian proverb that says that the wound inflicted by the swrod heals better than that
inflicted by toungue. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you can't top it, laugh at it; if you can't laugh at it, it is probably deserved. However, understanding and reading the motives and intentions of the adversary is important and we can do that by keeping our cool.

Brat of a brain

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

Well - The obscure takes time to see, but the obvious takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow

Labels are for soup cans

“Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.” - Billy Graham.

I protest.

You see, what will happen is, one will think of not wasting time, try and come up with ideas, work up the creative muscle, get into something one likes, will then hopefully succeed. It will/will not go into ones head but one will surely be "into" it. Immerse oneself doing what it is to be done and before you know it it will turn into deviousness which one "has to" do. One will go to a shrink as one does not have time for oneself, one is sick of listening to complaints and issues from everywhere. Then one will listen to someone advising one to make time, will have to listen to things like its not the be all/end all of everything and suddenly one realizes.. I need to sleep and waste a little time, be by myself, do a few things without consequence maybe.. Just be and flow maybe..

Because you see, wasting time does not really mean anything at all. Everyone has a journey they have to make through. On different levels, different paths, different mediums..

Success is just like being pregnant: Everybody congratulates you, but nobody knows how many times you were f***ed.

Time itself means only a certain thing on this planet and in this life form. Atbest it's something of a convenience to meet up in future! Time is when the stomach growls for an animal, when the eyes see for an owl, when the season to sleep for six months comes for a polar bear. Somehow it turned out to be a watch dictating things to man.

Excitement - where are you?

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed - Mohandas Gandhi

Someone said theres always a first time and a second chance. Thing is, is there an adequate amount of patience available in this world of NOW? Are there moments of reflection except when mistakes have been committed and guilt has over powered? It is obvious that when tomorrow is uncertain, attachments mean nothing. They mean nothing even when today is certain. Yet there always are attachments. There always is a sense of ownership. There always is a sense of misguided belief and a longing to have things last for ever.

There is nothing which is ever lasting in this world or domain. Yet there remains an increasing amount of struggle and strife. A plan for unexpected-turns-of-life seems outrageous when plans-per-se do not even work for expected events!

The upper and lower end of understanding

Inner peace

I "had to" post this on the blog, came across this in an internal mail at work..
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I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me today, and we all could probably use more calm in our lives.

Some doctor on telly this morning said that the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.

So I looked around my house to see things I'd started and hadn't finished and, before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of vocka, a pockage of Prunglies, tha mainder of bot Prozic and Valum scriptins, the res of the Chesescke an a box a chocolets.

Yu haf no idr who fkin gud I fel.

Peas sen dis orn to dem yu fee ar in ned ov inr pece