“Standing, looking out of the window makes me wish that I had a door.” Anthony T. Hincks
Inside Looking Out
Category: Perspective
What is Reality?
“What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.” Dōgen
The Battle of Hope and Fear
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called Without Hope which confused a lot of people, I hope this clears it up.
“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.” Pema Chodron
And to simplify: “Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear?” Lao Tzu
The Good Conductor
“There’s a metal train that’s a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long till it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he’s a good conductor?” Bo Burnham, New Math
Farm Living
I stopped to photograph this Amish farmer getting his field ready for planting and it was such a tender moment that tears came to my eyes. It might have been the near freezing temperature and biting wind, but the scene reminded me of many things.
Time passing so quickly, the changing of the seasons, the beauty of spring and the hard work of these farmers. As the smell of horse manure rose into the air, I thought of the show Green Acres, and Oliver deciding that working with his hands was more important than working as a lawyer in the big city.
I would say that farm livin’ is the life for me, keep Manhattan just give me that countryside. But I don’t like getting muddy, or working in a field all day, or having obsessive photographers standing there taking my picture while I’m trying to do my job.
The Meaning of Sunday
“Everything in this world has a hidden meaning.” Nikos Kazantzakis
Without Hope
“Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.” Antonio Porchia
Things to Come
“It’s not what they built. It’s what they knocked down. It’s not the houses. It’s the spaces between the houses. It’s not the streets that exist. It’s the streets that no longer exist.” James Fenton
Best Served Cold
Many people think alcohol is the best thing man ever invented. Author Henry Lawson even said: “Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.” And when I started drinking I felt the same way.
I wasn’t really sure if drinking beer was for me, it seemed like it was hard to drink enough, fast enough to be worth the trouble. Then I discovered Vodka and the whole game changed, although I still wasn’t sure I liked the feeling.
But I wanted to give it a fair chance so I drank heavily for the next twenty five years, just to be sure. Simply put, it didn’t work out well and after many tries I quit for good almost fifteen years ago.
Some people can drink a beer or two and stop, something I not only couldn’t do but will never understand. I was the same kind of drinker as the infamous Charles Bukowski who summed it up perfectly: “So where do you go? Back to the bottle And back to a tiny room somewhere. And wait. And wait, and wait. That’s all.”
The Paradox of Schrödinger’s Cat
“Everyone dies, but no one is dead.” Tibetan Saying
