BLUE CONVEXITY
KEW MAY 2010
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Saturday, 29 May 2010
HAVE NO FEAR FOR THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S YOUTH
Not when they can produce this kind of stuff. This is the men's a cappella group at the University of Oregon.
Awe-inspiring fun.
Thanks to Nancy Deacon-Davis for passing this on.
Awe-inspiring fun.
Thanks to Nancy Deacon-Davis for passing this on.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
SPLENDID QUOTES Re: Imbeciles
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
MARK TWAIN
Of course I regret calling them morons. Imbeciles would have been more appropriate.
SIMON HARDING
MARK TWAIN
Of course I regret calling them morons. Imbeciles would have been more appropriate.
SIMON HARDING
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
HUMOUR: Tarzan and Muck
Here, from a BBC series on regional accents (the Yorkshire accent, as it happens) is a very funny little story about Tarzan and the animals in the jungle.
TARZAN AND ANIMAL MUCK
TARZAN AND ANIMAL MUCK
Saturday, 15 May 2010
THOUGHTS FROM THE MIGHTY WAD: The Soul
My friend Maclyn asked me about the soul and the wad.
The only way I can answer her is by this poem, which I wrote for another friend. The inner Wad is complicated, but the only unifying force, the only one, is the force which leads to the soul: love.
THE CORRIDORS OF YOUR LIFE
Down the corridor of your mind are many doors
Who knows what lies behind them?
Life makes you choose.
In youth, hungry to win, afraid to lose
Not wanting to disappoint, and eager to please
You open them with ease.
Some bring you failure, or its twin, success
Some seem a certainty, others a guess
You find many unimportant
Or only means to ends
Behind some lie enemies,
A precious few hide friends.
The trip down this corridor is a test
To prove to yourself you have what it takes
Focusing on your goal, ignoring the rest
Savouring your victories, exposing mistakes
You press on to be best.
At some point down this corridor, far from the start
When you least expect
A new door opens to a journey apart
You meet someone and suddenly connect
And are led down the corridor of the heart.
This new corridor is different though,
Its journey lifelong
Behind each door lessons are learned
New emotions you couldn’t know
Right and wrong the hard way earned
Daily paid as feelings grow.
These emotions conflict as inside you change
You feel joy and doubt,
Contentment and pain,
The bitterness of loss and the sweetness of gain
As solutions somehow work themselves out
In this corridor decisions count
Both when taken and later
As consequences mount
There are no victories, no defeats
No false starts, no repeats
Only the experience of life made greater.
In this corridor you go forward and remember back
Old scars heal
When new feelings take their place
Showing little behind a public face
While inside you alone can know
That like your inner thoughts, each scar is real.
The corridor of the heart leads to love
But there is a price to be paid
For its end is the sum of all decisions made
Of the anger you have felt
Or the hurt you’ve been dealt
Of all words good and bad you’ve said.
But whatever the price this corridor exacts
Through what is in your grasp
Or beyond your control
Without the sum of all its acts
Your human life would not be whole
For the corridor of the heart leads to your soul.
The only way I can answer her is by this poem, which I wrote for another friend. The inner Wad is complicated, but the only unifying force, the only one, is the force which leads to the soul: love.
THE CORRIDORS OF YOUR LIFE
Down the corridor of your mind are many doors
Who knows what lies behind them?
Life makes you choose.
In youth, hungry to win, afraid to lose
Not wanting to disappoint, and eager to please
You open them with ease.
Some bring you failure, or its twin, success
Some seem a certainty, others a guess
You find many unimportant
Or only means to ends
Behind some lie enemies,
A precious few hide friends.
The trip down this corridor is a test
To prove to yourself you have what it takes
Focusing on your goal, ignoring the rest
Savouring your victories, exposing mistakes
You press on to be best.
At some point down this corridor, far from the start
When you least expect
A new door opens to a journey apart
You meet someone and suddenly connect
And are led down the corridor of the heart.
This new corridor is different though,
Its journey lifelong
Behind each door lessons are learned
New emotions you couldn’t know
Right and wrong the hard way earned
Daily paid as feelings grow.
These emotions conflict as inside you change
You feel joy and doubt,
Contentment and pain,
The bitterness of loss and the sweetness of gain
As solutions somehow work themselves out
In this corridor decisions count
Both when taken and later
As consequences mount
There are no victories, no defeats
No false starts, no repeats
Only the experience of life made greater.
In this corridor you go forward and remember back
Old scars heal
When new feelings take their place
Showing little behind a public face
While inside you alone can know
That like your inner thoughts, each scar is real.
The corridor of the heart leads to love
But there is a price to be paid
For its end is the sum of all decisions made
Of the anger you have felt
Or the hurt you’ve been dealt
Of all words good and bad you’ve said.
But whatever the price this corridor exacts
Through what is in your grasp
Or beyond your control
Without the sum of all its acts
Your human life would not be whole
For the corridor of the heart leads to your soul.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
THOUGHTS FROM THE MIGHTY WAD: The Ego and the Wad
People like to think they have a personality, and that this personality is what defines them. This is highly simplistic, and oftentimes just not true. Everything depends on one's point of view, and as someone said, we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. We are all the stars in our own film, and we all (especially when young) embark on a lifelong quest to find ourselves.
This is a quest which will ultimately prove fruitless.
The fact is, we all have two personalities. At least.
We have an outer self, which is on show, and an inner self, which is what I would call the thought balloon self. This is the self that has a running commentary which, if made public, would result in carnage, certainly the end of marriage as an institution, and a drastic drop in life expectancy. There would be no questions of guns being made freely available if thought balloons were made visible.
This inner self is also the repository of doubts, fears, jealousy, envy (the two are different), random cynicism, killing boredom, and most base desires (lust, gluttony,etc.). It also the source of beauty, poetry, a sadness which knows no bounds, contentment, and love.
This inner self is the sanctum of the Wad.
Good old Sigmund Freud divvied the human sentient being into the Ego, the Id, and the Superego. Waddism is a little more succinct. There is the Ego (the outer self) and the Wad.
And that is pretty much it.
Growing up and maturing is not so much a question of finding one's self, for indeed one of Waddism's tenets is that "From life's great trials we do not change; we only emerge as who we are."
The Wad is there. It is sort of a governor on the top speed we reach. It makes us fly, and brings us crashing back to earth. The Wad is our humanity.
The crucible of life is enough to temper the steel of one's character, and it is the hard times which will really define who we are. There is no need to look or discover yourself. The more you try, the more you will be frustrated. Forget about yourself. Think about the world around you and try to open up to the varied experiences, people, and worldviews available in it.
As the Mighty Wad says: Think of others. Be yourself.
Life, as a process, is the mastery (or indeed acceptance) of the Wad which is present in all of us, which can only be discovery by living, and following the singular path which is our destiny. The world will eventually tell us all we need to know about ourselves.
This is a quest which will ultimately prove fruitless.
The fact is, we all have two personalities. At least.
We have an outer self, which is on show, and an inner self, which is what I would call the thought balloon self. This is the self that has a running commentary which, if made public, would result in carnage, certainly the end of marriage as an institution, and a drastic drop in life expectancy. There would be no questions of guns being made freely available if thought balloons were made visible.
This inner self is also the repository of doubts, fears, jealousy, envy (the two are different), random cynicism, killing boredom, and most base desires (lust, gluttony,etc.). It also the source of beauty, poetry, a sadness which knows no bounds, contentment, and love.
This inner self is the sanctum of the Wad.
Good old Sigmund Freud divvied the human sentient being into the Ego, the Id, and the Superego. Waddism is a little more succinct. There is the Ego (the outer self) and the Wad.
And that is pretty much it.
Growing up and maturing is not so much a question of finding one's self, for indeed one of Waddism's tenets is that "From life's great trials we do not change; we only emerge as who we are."
The Wad is there. It is sort of a governor on the top speed we reach. It makes us fly, and brings us crashing back to earth. The Wad is our humanity.
The crucible of life is enough to temper the steel of one's character, and it is the hard times which will really define who we are. There is no need to look or discover yourself. The more you try, the more you will be frustrated. Forget about yourself. Think about the world around you and try to open up to the varied experiences, people, and worldviews available in it.
As the Mighty Wad says: Think of others. Be yourself.
Life, as a process, is the mastery (or indeed acceptance) of the Wad which is present in all of us, which can only be discovery by living, and following the singular path which is our destiny. The world will eventually tell us all we need to know about ourselves.
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