Sunday, November 25, 2012
Let's not be like others, because we are not like others
For ears, penetrating
For countenance, cordial
For demeanor, humble
For words, trustworthy
For service, reverent
For doubt, questioning
For anger, circumspect
For facing a chance to profit, moral."
Confucius
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
The Black Goat
The black goat trotted around a small room. Was it afraid? It started running into the walls. There was no blood but the walls started to crack. It hurt. The black goat became more aggressive; it seemed to have grown in size and with more force threw its weight at the walls. It hurt more. It grew horns like a ram. Curling backwards stylishly. Head like a rock. Head like a rock star. It attacked the walls without reservations. Smashing. It hurt massive. Where was the pain coming from? I looked down. My chest felt like it was about tear open. The trembling pain escalates. Okay. I am the wall? The black goat trotted into the room. Okay. I am not the wall? The black goat looked vicious. I'm afraid. If a black goat could come out of my body it may help. It actually does, slowly - with no sound. The pain is crippling but blunt. It is graphic but monochromatic. It is silent but complex. It isn't worth making a big fuss but it doesn't stop.
23
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Skill of the Particular
Isaiah Berlin
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
The Binding Fabric that is Justice
"If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it. Justice, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice."
Adam Smith
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Resonance of the Omitted Thing
Wolf Hall
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The Effect of the Division of Labour
Adam Smith
The Soul's Mirror
Adam Smith
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Porcupines in Winter
"On a cold winter's day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one another's quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain. In human beings, the emptiness and monotony of the isolated self produces a need for society. This brings people together, but their many offensive qualities and intolerable faults drive them apart again. The optimum distance that they finally find that permits them to coexist is embodied in politeness and good manners. Because of this distance between us, we can only partially satisfy our need for warmth, but at the same time, we are spared the stab of one another's quills."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Sunday, January 08, 2012
If
"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"
Rudyard Kipling