The flawless deep green melon rind
houses a pink, bland flesh.
The rind - pitted, yellowed, lumpy -
hides fruit: red, sweet, & fresh.
Fruit Beauty [Common Meter]
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Category Archives: wisdom
Five Wise Lines from Tagore’s Stray Birds
The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.
Stray birds — #48
By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
Stray birds — #154
The eyes are not proud of their sight but of their eyeglasses.
stray birds — #256
I carry in my world that flourishes the worlds that have failed.
stray birds — #121
Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the morning.
stray birds — #14
CITATION: Tagore, Rabindranath (1916), Stray Birds, New York: McMillan, 92pp.
Available on Project Gutenberg at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6524
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What I Don’t Know… [Lyric Poem]
I know nothing
of the sea-bottom,
or of the darkest void.
I know nothing
of the ancients' lives
or how most are employed.
I know nothing
of an atom's look,
or how works, gravity.
I know nothing
inside my organs
or nasal cavity.
I can but know
these simple truths
that live within my mind.
That it's better
being together, and
to err toward being kind.
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Note to Self: A Sonnet
Don't fill your vaults with glowing, shiny stones. It's invitation to all cheats and thieves. Don't know by mind what you don't know by bone. Make sure you've lost before you up and grieve. Then when you grieve, take time to fully feel. Don't let your mind write stories so untrue that they turn melancholy like a wheel that gathers and grows with each turn anew. Be kind and true, but not so kind and true so as to kill with gifts or a mean tongue. Don't do what would be best that you not do, and only sing of those heroes unsung. Oh, every piece of wisdom has its day, so don't hitch so tight that you're led astray.
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BOOK REVIEW: The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction by Terry Eagleton
The Meaning of Life by Terry EagletonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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“What is the meaning of life?” This is the question thrown at anyone accused of being a philosopher – professional or lay – though mostly in jest. In the present day, that is. In centuries past, large portions of the population took for granted that it was a question that had a knowable answer (one dictated by religion.) But as that answer became decreasingly satisfying to an increasing portion of the populace, people began to see the question as both fundamentally unanswerable and as a means to chide / test individuals who claimed wisdom or had the claim thrust upon them.
In this concise guide, Eagleton takes on the question, beginning with consideration of whether it is even a sound question. (Or, is it a question like: “What is the meaning of cabbage?” or “What color is a hypothesis?”) After considering many of the problems with the question, from the meaning of “meaning” to the presumptions about what a life has (and what it is) the book also considers some of the post-Nietzschean answers to the question and the challenges that confront them. [One that I hadn’t thought much about criticizes that many of these recent attempts are individualist (i.e. find your own meaning, one consistent with the peculiarities of your own unique life.) Is it reasonable to think that the question can only be answered at the level of granularity of the individual? Maybe, it can only be, but I did appreciate that it gave me something to think about.]
It should be pointed out that Eagleton doesn’t consider himself a philosopher. He’s primarily a critic and English literature professor. This had its advantages. First, Eagleton drew upon works of literature that explore the question, which both made for some interesting insights while also breaking up dense tangles of philosophizing. Second, much of the book deals with linguistic issues. Are the words and grammar of the question, “What is the meaning of life?” useful, and – if so – how do we understand the nature and limits of the question?
I found this book intriguing and provocative. It does have thickets of dense language, but also has its fun moments as well.
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BOOK REVIEW: The Pocket Chögyam Trungpa by Chögyam Trungpa
The Pocket Chogyam Trungpa by Chögyam TrungpaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This pocket-sized guide consists of 108 excerpts drawn from the writings of Chögyam Trungpa, a prolific — if controversial — teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Chögyam Trungpa may have been most famous in the West for coining the English term “Crazy Wisdom,” and for founding Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. [Note: while he coined the term “Crazy Wisdom,” he didn’t originate the concept, which existed already – arguably in multiple forms — in Vajrayana Buddhism from olden times.] Beyond basic Buddhist philosophy, he wrote extensively on Buddhist Psychology, Tantric Buddhism, and the Buddhist conception of warriorship.
The book is designed to be picked up at any point. There isn’t a formal grouping of concepts, but rather the book meanders around, revisiting ideas such as Enlightenment, Emptiness, emotional intelligence in multiple locations throughout the book. The entries are between a paragraph and a page long in most cases.
I found a great deal of food-for-thought in this book and would highly recommend it for those wishing to dip a toe into the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa.
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Traveler Time [Free Verse]
I’m a traveler —
attached only to the place
tethered to my now.
That’s the only place
that exists in any real sense.
The past has no reality
in the present - not really.
It’s a ghost,
a dim and fuzzy figment.
Only thorns of the moment
can prick me.
Past disasters hold no sway,
&
future calamities are acts
of imagination.
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Solace [Lyric Poem]
My war days are long past. I'm not quick to beat drums. I've neither king nor caste. I've seen the winter come. Fearful norms have no hold. The law has lost its sway. I've broken from the mold, and turned a roving stray. Crazy sages / role models: those freed from conventions, who can't stand for twaddle, and shun all pretensions.
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BOOK REVIEW: Zeno and the Tortoise by Nicholas Fearn
Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher by Nicholas FearnMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This book presents twenty-five philosophical tools or concepts fundamental to thinking philosophically. Fearn does an excellent job of making these ideas comprehensible while exploring how they can be of practical value in philosophizing (as opposed to diving into conceptual minutiae and the conflicts and debates around them.) The author uses stories, metaphors, and examples extensively, while avoiding jargon or complicated expressions and explanations.
The book is entirely Western-oriented, and one won’t see any discussion of ideas originating outside Europe (or North America by way of immigration from Europe.) That’s not uncommon for English language popular philosophy books, and I don’t think there’s anything nefarious to be read into it, though some will find it a shame. The philosophers whose ideas are addressed span from pre-Socratic Greece to Richard Dawkins (who I’m pretty sure is the only one still living.) The reader learns about reductionism, relativism, the Socratic method, analogy / allegory, teleology, thought experiments, parsimony, pragmatism (of sorts,) induction, skepticism, social contract, utilitarianism, dialectics, falsifiability, memes, deconstruction, and more.
I found this book to be readable and absorbing and would highly recommend it for anyone who would like an overview of the major ideas of Western philosophy and how they can be applied to thinking more philosophically.
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Quotations Stumbled Upon [Recently]
To survive in this world you have to be many times a coward but at least once a hero.
Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s son
The metaphysical assumptions upon which you want to build your life cannot be an inherited duty.
Patrick levy, Sadhus
It is true that if there were no phenomena which were independent of all but a manageably small set of conditions, Physics would be impossible.
Eugene wigner, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences
I feel about literature what Grant did about war. He hated it. I hate literature. I’m not a literary West Pointer; I do not love a literary man as a literary man, as a minister of the pulpit loves other ministers because they are ministers: it is a means to an end, that is all there is to it.
Walt whitman, as quoted in Yone Noguchi’s the spirit of japanese poetry
Know that all the sects in existence are a way to Hell.
Nichiren, as quoted by yone Noguchi in the spirit of japanese poetry
It is so easy to convert others. It is so difficult to convert oneself.
oscar wilde, the critic as artist
If you meet at a dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself — a rare type in our time, I admit, but still one occasionally to be met with — you rise from the table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience it is!
Oscar wilde, tHE CRITIC AS ARTIST
Tiger Riding for Beginners 