Notes from my Travels

Hey Luke,

Sometimes I want to return
to find who I was then
for who I’m not now.

Sometimes I return
and find who I was then
for who I could have been.

Sometimes when I’m there, then, now,
I find no beginning
and wind up here again

just as I-Am.

Love,

Luke.



http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Stephen Fry on philosophy and living without a concept of afterlife

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Arianna Huffington: "Hope" Has Been a Bust, It's Time for Hope 2.0

Arianna Huffington: "The 2008 election was all about "Hope". But Hope is simply not cutting it. What we need is Hope 2.0: the realization that our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians, however well intentioned -- that change is going to have to come from outside Washington. This realization is especially resonant as we celebrate Dr. King, whose life and work demonstrate the vital importance of social movements in bringing about change. Indeed, King showed that no real change can be accomplished without a movement demanding it. One year ago, Hope was about crossing our fingers and electing leaders that we thought would enact real change. Hope 2.0 is about using the lessons of Dr. King to create the conditions that give them no other choice".

Vonnegut on 'Farting Around'

"Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around".

Janine Benyus on Biomimicry

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Best Songs of the 2000s - My Working List

Click on the pictures to see them in full glory.

(If you're reading this on my blogger to Facebook Notes feed, click on this link)

Come around, sit down and write up some of your favourites in the comments box below.

http://thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

From Stephen A. Mitchell's Relationality: From Attachment to Intersubjectivity

Via my dear mate Mark Forman:

The distinction between fantasy and reality is important to adaptive functioning... But for life to be meaningful, vital, and robust, fantasy and reality cannot be too divorced from each other. Fantasy cut adrift from reality becomes irrelevant and threatening. Reality cut adrift from fantasy becomes vapid and empty... Meaning in human experience is generated in the the mutual, dialectically enriching tension between fantasy and reality; each requires the other to come alive. In the psychic universe of the individual mind, vitality and meaning require open channels between the developmentally earlier, but perpetually regenerated primal density and the clearly demarcated boundaries that make possible adaptive living.

Great list from Nick Cernis on alternatives to the overused blog format...

From http://putthingsoff.com/articles/rise-of-the-tablog/

When people tell me they want to start a website, my first response is not the knee-jerk shout of 'start a blog!' or 'use WordPress!' that echoes elsewhere, but a simple question: what are you trying to do?

• If you are trying to foster a community, build a dedicated site that caters to your users' needs and rewards their participation, like Stack Overflow has.
• If you are trying to meet people with similar interests, co-ordinate meetings using Meetup or Eventbrite, or host great events like Carsonified does.
• If you are trying to make money online, start a business with an obvious group of products, benefits, and prices, like 37signals.
• If you are trying to promote an existing business, invest your money in improving your current site and your time in guest posting on established platforms.
• If you are trying to write tutorials or spread expert knowledge, start a dedicated tutorial business like PeepCode or Lynda.
• If you are trying to become an expert in your field, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about, like Lance Armstrong.
• If you are trying to share links, keep a diary, or post notebook-style tipbits, use a simple service that you'll update, likePosterous, Tumblr, Soup, or Twitter.
• If you are trying to waste what's left of your childhood or recapture your youth, use social networking sites like Facebookor Virb.
• If you are trying to set up a shop, head for a secure platform like Big Cartel, or Shopify, or communities like Etsy.
• If you are trying to showcase your work, use a dedicated portfolio site that headhunters are already browsing, like Krop.
• If you are writing for love, prove it: use a format that puts your content first, like McSweeney's.

James Mark Baldwin's beautiful 1913 vision of trans-logical cognition

(reposted from Zak Stein)

"We see experience establishing, of itself, a synthetic mode of apprehension. To our mind, the course of the history of thought makes it plain that the quest for such a mode of experience presents the only hope of a lessened strife among points of view; for in such a mode of process evidence would be present to show that the entire system of experience is expressive of reality, and that only in the organization of the whole are the respective roles of this and that function to be made out. [Thus] the need of carrying out to their legitimate outcome all the hints that consciousness gives as to its unreduced and undivided epistemological calling. [This calling] does not deny the epistemological value of any of the mental functions, or the force of any of the theories which are based respectively upon one or other of the functions; on the contrary, its aim is to discover the synthetic adjustment of their claims with the larger whole".

From James Mark Baldwin's Genetic Theory of Reality (1913)

2012

Pearls from Peter Singer's How Are We To Live?