philosophistry



Thursday, Aug 28, 2003

[11:59 PM] More in Ideas | philipd:\>
Work Stinks

The Abolition of Work--Bob Black

Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right.

Historians like Eugene Genovese have argued persuasively that -- as antebellum slavery apologists insisted -- factory wage-workers in the Northern American states and in Europe were worse off than Southern plantation slaves.

John Stuart Mill wrote that all the labor-saving inventions ever devised haven't saved a moment's labor.

I'd highlight and paste stuff, but most of it's quotable. Very good, enlightening read



[12:52 PM] More in Ideas | philipd:\>
These guys! (from Peter)

"Silence is argument carried out by other means." - Ernesto "Che" Guevara



[10:18 AM] TrackBack (0) | More in Ideas | philipd:\>
Be Like the Pencil

I'm using a new technique in my sketches. They're abstract like my other sketches, but I've added a twist. My focus is now on the very minute movements of my pencil.

I hold the pencil down to the paper and wait. In this pause I resist the fighting urges to scribble and scrawl. I wait and wait until I feel that a certain purity of emotion comes from my heart into my hand. Once that begins, I let the pencil take its course until the passion fades.

The strokes are deliberately small, like 2-3 milimeters, almost like stipple drawing.

This process is slow, but the process is healing. Instead of the traditional imagine and slash sketching, we have a meditative form of drawing. This art process becomes a long kayak down the river of artistic evolution.

Observing the "mandala" emerge and grow over time is thrilling. It's like watching a community of insects coalesce in stop-motion capture photography.

Like many other art techniques, this same model of meditative growth can be applied to life. Why can't your life be more like the meditative pencil. Why can't you pause, and hold yourself down until you feel true passion enough to transition to the next step?

Last night I found myself, thoughts racing all over the place. I had two or three personal problems I was trying to wrap my finger around. (Here, let me hang my dirty clothes out): (1) I felt an upcoming tussle with my mom regarding my repeat decision to leave school (2) I have nobody to hang out with over Labor Day Weekend (3) I felt like I was wasting time solving problems but not really living life.

These three things were on my mind, and I was wrestling with them in a linear fashion. My mind would cycle between problem-restatements and hypothetical-solutions. I'd imagine, simulate, analyze, repeat, ultimately looking for the one solution that would work.

And then I remembered, "Be like the pencil." So I paused. I suspended my mental activities and embraced the moment. I resisted my urges to construct the next set of activity, and waited for my Passion to enter my mind and then choose for herself what she thought was the next best act.

Instead of thinking about my problems, my mind wandered toward some colorful reflections on the positive things that have been happening in my life. This continued peacefully until I was asleep and in dream state.

How much of your life and mindset is driven by a linear process? Do you find yourself always looking ahead at what is going to happen next? Are you always on the defensive-offensive, always on your toes, at the plate waiting to swing your bat?

Could you be satisfied with the infinitely wonderful now?



[12:42 AM] More in IE History | philipd:\>
Wednesday's IE History

Continuing with my experiment... I'm posting select histories of my previous day's net surfing as a form of self-expression and info dissemination...n'joy! Hopefully you can get a feel of the kind of stuff I go through and what piques my interests...

Clare Goodwin's Mandala Page
All Consuming Futuristic Book Club Erik Benson
All Consuming Book Info Quicksilver Volume One of The Baroque Cycle
All Consuming Book Info The Diamond Age (Bantam Spectra Book)
All Consuming
Amazon.com Books The Diamond Age (Bantam Spectra Book)
Amazon.com Books Deepest Thoughts So Deep They Squeak
Amazon.com Books Quicksilver Volume One of The Baroque Cycle
Amazon.com Books Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!
Amazon.com Books Pattern Recognition
Amazon.com Books Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
Welcome to anncoulter.com!
Google Answers
Healdsburg apartments for rent - Healdsburg apartments - Healdsburg apartment listings - Healdsburg condos for rent - Healdsburg townhouses for rent
Apple
www.ayahuasca.com
Still Lives
BeBits - winnuke
Welcome to Be Incorporated!
Beliefnet religions, spirituality, prayer, God, angels, politics, meditation...
Welcome to B-Girl
bgirldotnet
BLOGTV DOCUMENT YOUR LIFE
Browser History Windows Internet Explorer
blosxom the zen of blogging
Boost America! Homepage
Carolynn Stanford - A Traveler on Hosteling - BootsnAll's One-stop Hostels Travel Guide
Stanford Rejects!
Stanford Sucks Poetry Board
BroaderMinds Welcome to BroaderMinds!
BroaderMinds Stanford University
Carlos Castaneda's Magical Passes
The infinite complexity of our immediate environment
The Eight Circuits of Consciousness
Dictionary.com-mandala
Welcome to Engrish.com!
Erowid DMT Vault
Erowid Mescaline Vault
Erowid Character Vaults Timothy Leary
Erowid Cacti Vault (Trichocereus pachanoi and T. peruvianus)
Erowid Psilocybin Mushroom Vault Marķa Sabina Saint Mother of the Sacred Mushrooms
Erowid Peyote Vault
Erowid Psychoactive Vaults
Ethnogarden Botanicals - Seeds - Dried Herbs
PHP IE toolbar and ie history
FileShack.com
The Seventh Seal (1956) - ForeignFilms.com
menu
fx roads e-commerce consultants
Remembrances
John $tanford, In¢. Central
Stanfurd Sucks
MUSTANGU_E_dxtr.zip
DMGI.O
R3DEV
 tD° {  89_PmpFx. Mustangu e ± 2003 } ™ 
go2 The #1 Yellow Pages on your mobile phone
Google Search boost
Google Search courtesan
Google Search cpan ie history
Google Search deepest thoughts handley
Google Search dhingra
Google Search fuck
Google Search all
Google Search the
Google Search a
Google
Google Search if
Google Search internet
Google Search internet exlorer history perl
Google Search internet explorer history perl
Google Search internet exlorerhistory perl
Google Search internet explorer history perl viewer
Google Search is
Google Search it
Google Search mozilla import ie history
Google Search roflmao
Google Search stopping out stanford sitestanford.edu
Google Search where
Google Search who
Google Search windows history folder extractor
Google Search google
Google Search ^-^
Google Search ayahuasca
Google Search arnold
Google Search allah
Google Search acid
Google Search boostit
Google Search bye
Google Search christian
Google Search christianity
Google Search institution
Google Search john shapiro stanford
Google Search mandala
Google Search neuromics
Google Search ownage
Google Search sheeyat
Google Search terrence mckenna
Google Weblog
Exploring the Mandala
US Army Combat Arms Unit Histories
HGH Experiment Human Growth Hormone & Fibromyalgia
High Times Home
HOT or NOT - www.hotornot.com
PEOPLE, January 2002; Internet Prospector
I QUIT!!!!
The Official Website of NBA Sensation, Lebron James - LebronJames.com
Mathematics of the TimeWave
Omega Man A Profile of Terence McKenna (Richard Gehr)
accessing IE history with python...
(mt) Media Temple - Web Hosting Services
MindSay
Mt. Molelog Computers-Internet-Web-Blosxom-Plugins-Textile
tima thinking outloud. While I Was Out.
internet-history.html
Dan Rather Tops Dishonor Awards
Schwarzenegger Is Pressed for His Views on Social Issues
New Zealand News - World - Anthrax expert sues Ashcroft, FBI
Stanford Sucks!
Yet another reason Why Stanfurd Sucks.
Academics at Stanford
philipd's mindsay
RatherBiased.com Documenting Dan Rather and CBS News
RatherBiased.com Issues The Economy
RatherBiased.com About RatherBiased.com
what's in rebecca's pocket fair and balanced
Canal+ Headquarters
173-176 Perry Street
Microsoft Crash Gallery (page 2)
search.cpan.org WxActiveXIE - ActiveX interface for Internet Explorer. (Win32)
search.cpan.org Win32Internet - Access to WININET.DLL functions
Singularity Watch (Understanding Accelerating Change)
SISNA® - Your Internet Service Provider! (ISP)
The Biological Basis of Morality - 98.04
The Perpetual
a most luminous domain!
love songs
metalwork, paintings, and other projects



[12:15 AM] TrackBack (0) | More in Me Me Me | philipd:\>
Wake up!

Why do they always talk about "surviving school"? Since when did school become something detrimental enough to make survival questionable?

and should we even participate in activities that require survival?

sure, there are those that don't have much food to eat, and they fight for survival everyday.

but those of us that have inherited the wonders of modern american abundance, are life-threats necessary?

do we stay up late studying and crap just because it feels more comfortable?

or are we just stupid? Just how much brain is necessary to make an honest living? I mean seriously.

There are trillions of dollars being exchanged, everybody is a walking vault of at least $30 cash on them,... millions of ppl are surfing the internet with $250 in their paypal accounts, just waiting to give it around.

And you tell me you need a 4-year, $135,000 program to teach you how to tap into that?

That's what happens under fear.

irrationality.

it's what our government is carefully doing today.

Karl Rove & Co., couldn't be more happier with these multi-colored terror threats.

at first, after 9/11, I was genuinely scared.

but then the pattern of the media hype on terrorism and stuff just looked too planned, to well thoughtout.

it perfectly coincided with things like the Iraqi war or the Republican putsch.

fear leads to irrationality leads to external control

as soon as you cease to be rational, you lose your claim to free will.

But how does one stick out, how does one be that rock solid island of free independent thought.

baby, this is not an abstract ideal, you can't just meditate a calm journey through the bustling ocean that is your surroundings

check your environment. So much of how your mind grows is shaped by the context that you're in. If you're surrounded by people and programs, you're bound to only see yourself through the lens of your box.

you have to unchain yourself once in a while, take a retreat and do what they say, "find yourself"

and/or you need to abandon your environment or seek a multiplicity of freely chosen environments. How much of what you do is dependent on needs established before you chose to agree or disagree?

Money's important, mariage is important, school is necessary for a good existence, a large house, good car... these things have become "standard" even before we have begun to taste the real standards... nature... true love.... projects we have passion for... compassion for the needy.

Alas, it doesn't matter, my words don't matter in the end.

It's evolution.

We, as individual homo sapiens are fighting for our personal evolution just as much as other layers are fighting for their own space.

the virii in our body are fighting for their existence all the time--despite advances in medicine.

likewise, virii of the mind, such as religion.... also take their place.

just as do metropolii, organizations, capitalistic societies, socialistic dogma, etc...

so why not just give up? let this process go unchecked?

because they, this non-you, does not matter....

you are all that matters. As solipsistic as it sounds, none of these things exist without you.

With you, with your feelings, with your principles, with your ideas you should guide your actions...

I think this is the Existentialist mantra, and I think rejecting so would be an inauthentic and error-prone life.