Maybe it’s about time…
28 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, blog, books, culture, financial crisis, humanity, linguistics, local, philosophy, poetry, politics, psychology, society
Hi everyone. It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted – there is a reason for that and I promise to share the details, but that’s not for this post. This post has a different purpose – purpose. I’ve never been one to cite from other writers very much but I will now because this is no ordinary writer; this is, just as its subject: poetry in motion. I don’t know if a man has ever cited the following, if so, then I’m simply the next one but if I am the first, then it’s about time! Let this fill you:
Phenomenal Woman.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Maya Angelou – the one and only.
(My daughter; Maya. has some big shoes to fill).
ctwfrank
Change
29 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Humanity Tags: all, blog, ctwfrank, culture, economics, education, family, Life, linguistics, miscellaneous, money, News, people, philosophy, psychology, random, reviews, society, thoughts, writing
Change [cheynj]
Source: Dictionary.com Unabridged
verb (used with object)
- to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one’s name; to change one’s opinion; to change the course of history.
- to transform or convert (usually followed by into ): The witch changed the prince into a toad.
- to substitute another or others for; exchange for something else, usually of the same kind: She changed her shoes when she got home from the office.
- to give and take reciprocally; interchange: to change places with someone.
- to transfer from one (conveyance) to another: You’ll have to change planes in Chicago.
- to give or get smaller money in exchange for: to change a five-dollar bill.
- to give or get foreign money in exchange for: to change dollars into francs.
- to remove and replace the covering or coverings of: to change a bed; to change a baby.
verb (used without object)
- to become different: Overnight the nation’s mood changed.
- to become altered or modified: Colors change if they are exposed to the sun.
- to become transformed or converted (usually followed by into ): The toad changed into a prince again.
- to pass gradually into (usually followed by to or into ): Summer changed to autumn.
- to make a change or an exchange: If you want to sit next to the window, I’ll change with you.
- to transfer between trains or other conveyances: We can take the local and change to an express at the next stop.
- to change one’s clothes: She changed into jeans.
- (of the moon) to pass from one phase to another.
- (of the voice) to become deeper in tone; come to have a lower register: The boy’s voice began to change when he was thirteen.
- the act or fact of changing; fact of being changed.
- a transformation or modification; alteration: They noticed the change in his facial expression.
- a variation or deviation: a change in the daily routine.
- the substitution of one thing for another: We finally made the change to an oil-burning furnace.
- variety or novelty: Let’s try a new restaurant for a change.
- the passing from one place, state, form, or phase to another: a change of seasons; social change.
- Jazz . harmonic progression from one tonality to another; modulation.
- the supplanting of one thing by another.
- anything that is or may be substituted for another.
- a fresh set of clothing.
- money given in exchange for an equivalent of higher denomination.
- a balance of money that is returned when the sum tendered in payment is larger than the sum due.
- coins of low denomination.
- any of the various sequences in which a peal of bells may be rung.
- Also, ‘change. British . exchange ( def. 10 ) .
- Obsolete . changefulness; caprice.
Verb phrase
- change off,
- to take turns with another, as at doing a task.
- to alternate between two tasks or between a task and a rest break.
Idioms
- change front, Military . to shift a military force in another direction.
- change hands. hand ( def. 47 ) .
- change one’s mind, to change one’s opinions or intentions.
- ring the changes,
- to perform all permutations possible in ringing a set of tuned bells, as in a bell tower of a church. T
- o vary the manner of performing an action or of discussing a subject; repeat with variations.
Origin:
1175–1225; (v.) Middle English cha ( u ) ngen < Anglo-French, Old French changer < Late Latin cambiāre, Latin cambīre to exchange; (noun) Middle English cha ( u ) nge < Anglo-French, Old French, noun derivative of the v.
Synonyms
1. transmute, transform; vary, mutate; amend, modify. Change, alter both mean to make a difference in the state or condition of a thing or to substitute another state or condition. To change is to make a material difference so that the thing is distinctly different from what it was: to change one’s opinion. To alter is to make some partial change, as in appearance, but usually to preserve the identity: to alter a dress ( to change a dress would mean to put on a different one).
3. replace, trade.
4. trade.
7. convert.
10. vary, mutate, amend.
18. transmutation, mutation, conversion, vicissitude.
21. exchange.
25, 26. replacement.
Antonyms
10. remain. 18. permanence.
change (tʃeɪndʒ)
Source: Collins World English Dictionary
— vb (sometimes foll by to or into ) (when intr, may be foll by into or out of )
- to make or become different; alter
- ( tr ) to replace with or exchange for another: to change one’s name
- to transform or convert or be transformed or converted
- to give and receive (something) in return; interchange: to change places with someone
- ( tr ) to give or receive (money) in exchange for the equivalent sum in a smaller denomination or different currency
- ( tr ) to remove or replace the coverings of: to change a baby
- to put on other clothes
- ( intr ) (of the moon) to pass from one phase to the following one
- to operate (the gear lever of a motor vehicle) in order to alter the gear ratio: to change gear
- to alight from (one bus, train, etc) and board another
- change face to rotate the telescope of a surveying instrument through 180° horizontally and vertically, taking a second sighting of the same object in order to reduce error
- informal change feet to put on different shoes, boots, etc
- change front
- military to redeploy (a force in the field) so that its main weight of weapons points in another direction
- to alter one’s attitude, opinion, etc
- change hands to pass from one owner to another
- change one’s mind to alter one’s decision or opinion
- change one’s tune to alter one’s attitude or tone of speech
-n - the act or fact of changing or being changed
- a variation, deviation, or modification
- the substitution of one thing for another; exchange
- anything that is or may be substituted for something else
- variety or novelty (esp in the phrase for a change ): I want to go to France for a change
- a different or fresh set, esp of clothes
- money given or received in return for its equivalent in a larger denomination or in a different currency
- the balance of money given or received when the amount tendered is larger than the amount due
- coins of a small denomination regarded collectively
- archaic ( often capital ) a place where merchants meet to transact business; an exchange
- the act of passing from one state or phase to another
- the transition from one phase of the moon to the next
- the order in which a peal of bells may be rung
- sport short for changeover
- slang desirable or useful information
- obsolete fickleness or caprice
- change of heart a profound change of outlook, opinion, etc
- slang get no change out of someone not to be successful in attempts to exploit or extract information from someone
- ring the changes to vary the manner or performance of an action that is often repeated
[C13: from Old French changier, from Latin cambīre to exchange, barter]
Word Origin & History
change
early 13c., from O.Fr. changier, from L.L. cambiare, from L. cambire “to exchange, barter,” of Celtic origin, from PIE base *kamb- “to bend, crook.” The financial sense of “balance returned when something is paid for” is first recorded 1620s. Phrase change of heart is from 1828.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Slang Dictionary
change definition
n.
money. (See also and change.) : It takes a lot of change to buy a car like that.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Notes:
Dictionaries are so cool; they’re keepers. Look at the slang definition!
Now, you know what it is, there’s no need to be afraid of it.
ctwfrank
The changing world
18 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, ctwfrank, culture, economics, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, Life, News, philosophy, psychology, random, society, thoughts, writing
The world that we have created for ourselves has changed so much and continues to change, at an ever increasing pace. Well, it’s not really the World that is the Earth, it’s actually the set of rules that we created and that we live by – I guess it’s like a “world” of its own; that’s the world I’m talking about. Everything is changing so fast and to such extremes, that sometimes it taxes the human ability referred to as adaptability; one of the things that distinguishes us from every other type of life. It only taxes it, however; we still adapt; better and faster than any other living creature that we know of. The reason we’re so good at it is because adaptability is, in great part, based on forgetting, something that we are also very good at. It takes a minute or two to think about it, but we adapt quickly and better than any other living thing because we forget so well; the speed at which we forget determines how easily and well we will accept change. It is a curious thing: if you sit down and force yourself to remember how it used to be, even a mere ten years ago: it was another world, wasn’t it? Think about it and remember. Do you remember what it was like back then? Do you remember what it was like in the world, before? People had more than they needed; we had no idea what was precious and what wasn’t. We threw away things that people would kill for now. There are so many things that today are common, well known and part of our daily lives; yet as little as ten years ago the same things would have been considered impossible or inconceivable. How did all of this happen, and so quickly? Do you want to know? Let me share something with you.
Look at the preceding paragraph for a moment. Read it again. It is true and accurate, isn’t it? There’s no wordplay or linguistic trickery in that paragraph designed to make you believe it. Everyone, including you and I; who reads it arrives at the same conclusion: that it is a fairly accurate depiction of life today. I’m going to repeat a segment of the preceding paragraph below; you can locate it in the above if you like and put it in context with the rest of the paragraph, afterwards, look at it again below.
Do you remember what it was like in the world before? People had more than they needed; we had no idea what was precious and what wasn’t. We threw away things that people would kill for now.
Those sentences are actually lines from a movie script, spoken by the inimitable actor Denzel Washington in his role as Eli in the 2010 movie The Book of Eli. If you haven’t seen it, then it doesn’t hit you like it does if you had, but it is sill impacting enough. Still, you should see it, it’s probably the closest thing to a true future story that any one of us will ever see. This scene is exactly 41 minutes and 38 seconds into the movie. Eli is answering a young woman’s question; the same question posed in first paragraph. Oh yes, one more thing: the movie is a post-apocalyptic work of science-fiction. It’s a wonderfully entertaining movie, nonetheless it is science fiction and yet I took lines of dialogue from the script of that movie and put them right in the middle of a paragraph where I am describing today’s reality and it fits, perfectly.
So you see that’s how all of this happened – we’ve actually become a science fiction movie: a science fiction movie.
Does anybody get it yet? None of this is real, we just believe it is. We don’t have to go through any of this, we don’t have to believe any of this; we can choose something else to do and believe in; something less painful and destructive.
We must wake up and choose what we want and stop believing that things that we created can choose for us, please. This is killing us; all of us.
ctwfrank
A different kind of math.
10 Dec 2011 6 Comments
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: articles, blog, ctwfrank, culture, economics, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, irony, linguistics, News, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, society, thoughts, writing
I do not now, nor have I ever subscribed to or validated the concept of ethnicity in any way, because the math says it is irrelevant to the human condition. This is also why I have never written any math that takes ethnicity into account as a legitimate variable; as I have said before: “There is no them, there’s only us.”
This is now how everyone else thinks, however. The one only human construct more absurd and utterly evil than the word ethnicity is what was born from it: racism. That’s all I have to say about that. In spite of this, ethnicity looks like it might be a factor in the impending, inevitable and imminent change that we must all navigate to the human condition. This does not change the fact that the word and its mutated offspring are unacceptable, it simply means that I wrote this single and solitary post from the perspective that we gave those words. If it sounds contradictory to what you just read; it’s not; it’s just a different kind of math but it’s just as true and valid as all the math. It is the same math that says that even though only about 40 people will undoubtedly understand what follows, (they will all definitely read this post) there’s a possibility than many others will understand it as well. That would be a good thing, and it’s time for some good things. Following is the only math I will ever include in the Catalogue of Calculations that is in any way based on ethnicity. I won’t explain this math, I’ll let you figure it out; it may just be the only atom of value that exists when it comes to ethnicity.
The single biggest honor that as ever been bestowed on me in the whole of my life actually happened several times: the same honor, bestowed by several different people at different times, who all genuinely treated me, and continue to treat me, as a black man.
That says it all.
ctwfrank
Six ideas that will never work to fix the global crisis: (this is only a partial list).
04 Dec 2011 5 Comments
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, culture, economics, education, family, financial crisis, history, inspiration, Life, love, News, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, reviews, thoughts, video
- Anything containing the words “they”, “them”, “somebody” or “someone”, as in; “They should increase the enforcement of the xxxx law, that will reduce the burden on XXX or “Someone better make sure that they stop printing so much money.” We shouldn’t forget that it was them who got us into this mess to begin with.
- Anything that would use an existing law, social mechanism, or system as part of a solution to anything, as in: “If they backed off a bit on quantitative easement and balanced it out with a payroll tax credit stimulus, then small businesses would be motivated to hire workers.” Nothing that we have come up with so far, not one law, social tool, government, political ideology or anything else has ever worked; if any one of them would have worked, we wouldn’t be in this situation, so what good is it to use something that we already know doesn’t work? We need a new way of thinking to solve the global crisis.
- Anything that would allow for people to continue believing that the debt that we suddenly seem to be saddled with and which is slowing strangling us all is real. There is no debt, they are just numbers on a ledger that people believed were real dollars and let the banks use them as real dollars. According to global authorities, when added together, there is approximately $84 Trillion in debt in the world and $32 Trillion in wealth (money, gold and things that have value) – that isn’t even POSSIBLE. How can we owe more than what there is. It’s like claiming to be “a little bit pregnant.” it’s just not possible.
- Anything that would promote inaction and prevent actual change, as in; “What can anyone do? It’s not like I can make a difference in anything.” Or “We’re just going to have to wait this out and see what happens.” It would behoove us to remember that if we do not change the direction in which we are all headed as a global civilization, what lies ahead is the utter obliteration of the human condition as we know it.
- Anything that deposits our trust and confidence in luck, magic, and especially unbelievable stories, as in; “Things are definitely bad, but eventually, they will figure something out; they always do, and then everything will be back to normal, it always does”. Not this time.
- Anything that promotes the idea that a “good, old-fashioned war” or any action based on violence will provide the incentive and stimulus that we need to improve the global crisis. I certainly hope that there’s no one left in the work who actually believes THAT.
These are all things that definitely will not work to provide a solution to our global crisis; so what will work? We simply haven’t come up with that yet, but we CAN. We can do better.
Let’s be serious…just for a moment
26 Nov 2011 4 Comments
in Money Tags: all, art, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, love, miscellaneous, movies, News, people, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, reviews, society, technonology, writing
Seriously now, it’s already hard enough having to sit and watch us bullshit ourselves to the point of idiocy, but I just finished a tag surfing session and in addition to the usual endless droning about GOLD this and GOLD that, I just saw (for the first time) an article regarding a country that was “repatriating” its gold from the vaults in London and New York where the countries of the world have kept their gold since WWII. The article stated that the decision to repatriate the gold had been made by the leader of the country “in view of the volatile nature of the world’s economy’. That was just a bit much. Up until now, the math more or less indicated that everyone knows that the whole GOLD thing is bullshit, but all of a sudden I’m not sure if I should doubt that math. Is it possible that people actually BELIEVE this shit and are not just playing along because that’s what we think we must do? I don’t know, but it’s scary. Scary enough to motivate me to post this message:
Just in case anyone actually believes that GOLD has any actual value that makes it immune to anything that might happen to the economy or to human civilization, it should be noted that GOLD is actually worthless. It is a fairly unremarkable metal that we selected to use as the stuff that we would manufacture MONEY from back when we decided that WEALTH (which has always been FOOD) should have a standardized measure of exchange to facilitate commerce. We picked GOLD to be the “material” used to manufacture money because it was PLIABLE and we could shape it into coins more easily than other metals. In other words, GOLD became the manufacturing material for money because it was SOFT, period. That’s about all there is to GOLD, the rest we made up and believed. In summary; if the U.S., European or global economy should collapse (they actually already have, but I won’t go against the “grain”, I’ll play like it hasn’t happened yet) then what in the world is that country I mentioned earlier going to do with all of their repatriated GOLD? It’s time for everyone to begin to digest the truth because it is the truth, regardless of how we feel or what we believe and the truth is that there IS no more money. We spent all the money that there was, that there is and that there will be in the next 500 years and there is nothing left to substantiate any math that supports the concept of money. The machinery that moves civilization is running today (albeit poorly) only because we BELIEVE that those little pieces of paper and GOLD are actually worth something, but this hallucination is quickly fading and sooner than we can imagine, MOST of us will have no choice but to face this truth and deal with it. So I ask you: when the MACHINERY that runs the “world”; the one that runs on “money” finally peters out and shuts down, ending commerce and production globally, what can anyone do with GOLD? With no infrastructure in place, there will be no system in place to grow and distribute FOOD OR WATER and in 3 months there will be mayhem. What good will 10 or 11 billion dollars worth of GOLD do when everyone is STARVING? Who in their right mind would trade a can of beans that they found in the back of some forgotten cabinet somewhere for a mountain of GOLD at that point? You can’t EAT the stuff! It’s a freaking METAL, no different than tin, bronze or iron and no more or less valuable than whatever WE decide. It was hard for me to digest, but I did. This means that you can too, because we’re all the same. I know that it’s hard to let go of the world as we know it, but WE BROKE IT and we need to build a new one, so we need to grow up, quickly, or in the simplest of terms, we’re fucked. YOU know this, I know this and we ALL know this. I refuse to believe that we are all idiots, but we are dangerously close to proving that to be true – and that applies to me as well, if we end up screwing ourselves because of idiocy, then that makes me an idiot too. I don’t want to be an idiot.
We CAN do better.
The righteousness parable
26 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, blog, ctwfrank, economics, education, financial crisis, Life, News, personal, psychology
Recently, I applied the final touches to my latest book and decided that there was nothing more that I could change, improve, fix or be paranoid about, which meant that it was good enough. It’s called “The Sixty-seven Rules: A promise kept.” I gave it that title because I was keeping a promise (to you; cool beans!). This post is not about my book however, it is best example of rule #2 that exists, and rule #2 is very, very important right now. Just to recap; rule #2 says: “Never confuse shit with shinola.”
For as long as anyone can remember, people have confused, substituted or treated as synonyms; the words Truthfulness and Righteousness. It is not very difficult to understand how this occurred, given our track record for using heaping portions of convenience and hypocrisy in the building of our social structures and languages. The fact that the origins of the phenomenon are easily understandable does not make it any less unacceptable.
A simple application of the basic scientific process yields some very enlightening answers. We have a fascinating love/hate relationship with truth, we always have, ever since whenever it was that we understood what it was; because we all understand what truth is. For the sake of clarity, truth is an intransigent absolute in the universe, which means that it just is. It can’t be changed, modified, corralled, manipulated or swayed, in fact as far as we humans are concerned, when it comes to truth; there are only two ways that we can interact with it: we can accept it or ignore it, but that’s about it. That is what has always fascinated us about truth: its unquestioned validity. A truth simply is, above all else and in spite of anything else. That particular quality is irresistibly desirable to us: to be unquestionable, indisputable and publicly acknowledged as right above all else. The mere thought of a person possessing the intransigent qualities of truth is so powerful that it overpowers and overshadows all human emotions, even lust. We simply had to incorporate it into the human condition, so we came up with truthfulness; a human trait also referred to as honesty. In reality, both terms are misnomers; what is claimed by the use of the words truthfulness and honesty is far from what we actually do when we’re being truthful and honest because we lie, continuously. We can’t help but lie, it’s so easy to get away with. The only problem is rule #1: “Do not lie.” This rule is not “optional”, it is not something that one can casually decide to acquire or to partake of, it is a requirement for happiness. Hold on… wasn’t I writing about truth just a moment ago? How did I end up here? Do you see how easily we confuse things? Regardless of this, neither word has anything to do with truth, they are just one way that we have attempted to “humanize” one of the absolute qualities of the universe.
It turns out that truthfulness and honesty simply did not provide the same amount of pleasure to the ego as truth. They were good qualities, but while they leaned towards aspects of actual truth, they became synonymous with humility and as anyone can tell you, humility is a WEAKNESS. It’s what a person should claim to be, when in fact they desire to be and are expected to be ruthless and imposing and above all else: right. Yes, that is what makes human flesh tremble with desire and makes the knees weak: to be right – and for everyone else to know that I’m right. Oh yes! That’s good, that’s very good! All it needed was a little math to establish the parallel and all of a sudden; there it was: To be right one had to possess truth, otherwise they were wrong. Being right became the membership ID card that was shown when we wanted to be treated by others with the same unyielding and unquestionable validity as truth, and it worked! All one had to be was right and BAM! – the same endorphins and pheromones that are set off when we imagine what it must be like for a person to be as omnipotent as truth itself coursed through the body. We humans have always been so resourceful.
In this manner, we created righteousness and immediately upon doing so, we did something to ourselves that will haunt us to until we reconcile the truth; we created and set loose a construct capable of giving the human ego an orgasm, as it were.
[Note: Keep in mind that a human ego having an orgasm is probably the most horrific thing that can be imagined. Without our egos, we’re not human, but when you take into account that the ego is such a ferocious and inconsiderate beast that the only way that a person can remain human is to keep their ego on a very short leash and feed it a very low calorie diet to keep it weak, lest it consume everything in its path, the thought of that same thing having an orgasm is overwhelmingly addictive.]
Following is the definition that we assigned to the word; righteous, and just in case it pops into your mind: it’s no joke:
right·eous
[rahy-chuhs]
adjective
- Characterized by uprightness or morality: a righteous observance of the law.
- morally right or justifiable: righteous indignation.
- acting in an upright, moral way; virtuous: a righteous and godly person.
- Slang . absolutely genuine or wonderful: some righteous playing by a jazz great.
- noun
- the righteous, ( used with a plural verb ) righteous persons collectively.
World English Dictionary
righteous (ˈraɪtʃəs)
-adj
- characterized by, proceeding from, or in accordance with accepted standards of morality, justice, or uprightness;
- virtuous: a righteous man(as collective noun ; preceded by the):
- the righteous morally justifiable or right, especially from one’s own point of view: righteous indignation
And so it is that right there, in the last definition of righteous, in the same line item where the concept of righteous indignation is established that the math unravels completely. We started out with truth; a universal constant that contains, among other things, the attribute of indisputable and absolute validity and veracity and attempted to define a human version which we called truthfulness or honesty, but they resulted in humility which we interpret as “weak”. We then embellished truthfulness by adding the premise of being right based on a “solid moral foundation” and gave birth to righteousness, which takes the entire concept straight down the toilet, where we reach righteous indignation, or “I’m right, you’re wrong, therefore I own the truth.”
So then, what have we accomplished? We are a world of 7 billion people who each believe that they are right. We attempted to emulate truth and came up with righteousness, which allows for everyone to be right and for everyone to also be wrong, depending on the desire for convenience. This is then further extrapolated into “I’m right, therefore I’m telling the truth and you are lying because you’re wrong.” Other than the clear errors in this psychotic math, it’s not even possible! Everyone can’t be right and wrong at the same time! That would be…impossible and paradoxical, right? Reality would shatter and all life on earth would immediately come to an end. I can clearly hear a voice, it sounds like the voice of an older woman, saying: “Well, I’m very sorry. I guess the world will just have to end then, because I’m RIGHT.” None of us are right or wrong, just human. Isn’t that right? Come on now, tell the truth!
”Being right serves no purpose, whatsoever.”
ctwfrank
?!!!!??!!!
12 Nov 2011 3 Comments
in Humanity Tags: all, ctwfrank, culture, economics, future, history, humanity, Life, money, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, society, technonology, thoughts, writing
I stopped for a moment just now – stopped everything; the math, the work, the thinking, the labor. I stopped and stood up; straight as I could. I looked around and took a deep breath – just now, and I caught a glimpse of it. It’s tiny, faint and no more than a whisper, but it’s there alright. Can you see it? Can you smell it? I have no math for this, I’ve never actually seen anything like it so I’m going by what my gut; my human gut, is telling me – and it is familiar. It’s US. I am quite sure that I just saw the very first truly collective spark of pure human hope that I’ve ever seen – who knows, maybe it’s the first one ever, but that’s what it is! Heads up, brothers and sisters; look for it, it’s there – we can do this! We can do…better.
ctwfrank
That which has value
09 Nov 2011 7 Comments
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, economics, education, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, money, News, personal, philosophy, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, videos, writing
The whole of human existence has become blindly obsessed with the issue of having possession of, if not the right to possess (by virtue of debt) those things that have value, specifically; money. No thing has any more or less value than what we assign it and it is woeful to contemplate that we would, individually or collectively, assign a higher value to any thing than what we reserve for ourselves, yet we have.
In the universe, there are only two values, these being the same ones we should concern ourselves with, lest we lose all reason and rationality: There is that which is TRUE and that which is FALSE and to count them as two values is only insofar as there are two different words to count, for they are in essence, opposite views of the same value; its validation and its negation. The only actual and real value that exists is truth which is simultaneously the only thing of value, yet we have come to value money more we value ourselves and even more than truth, and because of these we are all but lost in our own lie.
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03 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Humanity Tags: ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, education, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
It has always been generally considered that our modern globe-spanning Western Civilization chose Greece to be the place to herald its birth. Now, all of a sudden, it might just be that it also chose Greece to be the place where it lay down to die.
ctwfrank
