twenty-something and invincible

"The human species has inhabited this planet for only 250,000 years or so-roughly.0015 percent of the..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:56:04 +0800

“

The human species has inhabited this planet for only 250,000 years or so-roughly.0015 percent of the history of life, the last inch of the cosmic mile. The world fared perfectly well without us for all but the last moment of earthly time–and this fact makes our appearance look more like an accidental afterthought than the culmination of a prefigured plan.

Moreover, the pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky, improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Human evolution is not random; it makes sense and can be explained after the fact. But wind back life’s tape to the dawn of time and let it play again–and you will never get humans a second time.

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer — but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating. We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves — from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way.

”

- Legendary Science Writer, Stephen Jay Gould, reflects on the meaning of life.
Source: LIFE, 1988

"I looked upon every Cross, in every church, yet He was not there. I went to the temples of India and..."

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:31:36 +0800

“I looked upon every Cross, in every church,
yet He was not there.
I went to the temples of India
and the shrines of China
yet He was not there.
I searched the mountains of Herat and Candalar
yet He was not there.
I scaled the distant peak of Mount Qaf
only to find
the empty nest of the Phoenix.
I visited the Ka’be
but He was not in that tourist site
amidst the pilgrims young and old.
I read the books of Avicenna
but His wisdom went beyond all the words.
I went to the highest court,
within the distance of “two-bow lengths,”
yet He was not there.
Then I looked within my own heart
and there I found Him-
He was nowhere else.”

- Rumi

"everything starts with a heartbreak."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:22:56 +0800

“everything starts with a heartbreak.”

"Mamihlapinatapai"

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:27:00 +0800

“Mamihlapinatapai”

- In the now almost extinct indigenous language of Yaghan (Tierra del Fuego), this word refers to the “look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves”.

How moving.

"Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it? Whence was it born, whence came creation? The gods..."

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 17:43:00 +0800

“

Who knows for certain?
Who shall here declare it?
Whence was it born, whence came creation?
The gods are later than this world’s formation;
Who then can know the origins of the world?

None knows whence creation arose;
And whether he has or has not made it,
He who surveys it from the lofty skies,
Only he knows – or perhaps he knows not.

”

- Rig Veda X:129

(quoted by Carl Sagan)

"Time can heal what reason can’t."

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:26:37 +0800

“Time can heal what reason can’t.”

I don’t know why rape, abortion and contraception are classified as women’s issues. There is no...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 07:36:51 +0800

I don’t know why rape, abortion and contraception are classified as women’s issues. There is no issue that exclusively concerns just women - everything involves and affects men just as much. Are there matters being discussed called men’s issues? Wake up! These are pertinent social issues. Many people like to call certain social issues women’s issues in order to denigrate their importance in public discourse, which is such a gross disgrace to the principles of equality that our society is founded on. Bring the men back into the picture and re-frame the discussion as a critical social issue.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:16:24 +0800

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed

Word it is.

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:24:09 +0800

Word it is.

"If you are reserving your love only for those who you have decided are worthy of it – all strangers..."

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:17:51 +0800

“If you are reserving your love only for those who you have decided are worthy of it – all strangers excluded – it may come as a surprise to learn that this is not love at all, it is called judgment. Judgment is selective, love is all embracing. Just as the sunlight and the wind do not discriminate, true love does not make any such distinctions either. Love and kindness is a way of living. Where there is love, there is no judgment. Where there is judgment, there is no love.”

- Marc and Angel

You put the line in the water, and it’s your imagination...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 02:05:00 +0800

You put the line in the water, and it’s your imagination that’s under there.

Photo: Ben Heine

Photo

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 00:41:03 +0800

Arms break. Vases don’t. Impossible photography by Erik...

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 00:23:00 +0800

Arms break. Vases don’t.

Impossible photography by Erik Johansson

A crane lifts miners in a basket out of a 300ft deep mine shaft,...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:44:00 +0800

A crane lifts miners in a basket out of a 300ft deep mine shaft, as they head out for their lunch break, near the village of Latyrke near Lad Rymbai, India, on April 13, 2011. The Jaintia hills, located in India’s far North East state of Meghalaya, miners descend to great depths on slippery, rickety wooden ladders. Children and adults squeeze into rat hole like tunnels in thousands of privately owned and unregulated mines, extracting coal with their hands or primitive tools and no safety equipment. Some of the labor is forced, and an Indian NGO group, Impulse, estimates that 5,000 privately-owned coal mines in Jaintia Hills employed some 70,000 child miners.
India remains home to the greatest number of child laborers in the world despite efforts by successive governments to address the problem through compulsory education and anti-poverty programs.

(Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

"There comes a point when you have to let go and stop chasing some people. If someone wants you in..."

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:49:27 +0800

“There comes a point when you have to let go and stop chasing some people. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll find a way to put you there. Sometimes you just need to let go and accept the fact that they don’t care for you the way you care for them. Let them leave your life quietly.”

- Marc and Angel

"Ratrer ei niraboder bhetor, kondike cholechi?"

Sat, 12 May 2012 01:46:06 +0800

“Ratrer ei niraboder bhetor, kondike cholechi?”

"Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of..."

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 22:37:29 +0800

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

"Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve..."

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:41:00 +0800

“

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Colombia.

”

- Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:26:00 +0800

“

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of [my] deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dreamless sleep, this is a forlorn hope. Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive.

The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

”

- Carl Sagan

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We..."

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 21:03:39 +0800

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

- Elie Wiesel