ThoughtsOnLiving

Time Perception

Layers of Time:

"Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span."

* * *

When Brian first moved to New York City he found that in New York here and now meant this room and this five minutes, as opposed to the larger here and longer now that he was used to in England. We have since adopted the term as the title of our foundation as we are trying to stretch out what people consider as now.

The Long Now

On Privacy and the "Human Need for Connection"

We’re more than happy to report what we’ve eaten for breakfast, who we’re dating, the books we’re reading, even when we’re taking a bath. It seems as if we can’t wait to tell the whole world the most trivial facts about ourselves. Yet when someone on the elevator asks us how we’re doing, we say, "fine" regardless of the true state of our condition.

It seems as if we’ve created social networks with a slew of supporting technologies without having any idea about who our next door neighbors are.

from Coding Slave

Happiness, Indirectly

"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product" - Eleanor Roosevelt

Seen and Unseen Wonder

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

From the famous editorial "Yes Virigina, There Is A Santa Claus"

New Photo Album: Chihuly Glass Exhibit

Shots from recent visit to the Chihuly Glass exhibit at the de Young Museum.  Simply amazing glass work.

Thoughts On Creativity

"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."
    - Sir Ken Robinson

(From this fabulous TED talk)

In That Place Of More Wall Than Room

"The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run — I like that sound, it's very soothing to me — and I'd play. In the dark. 'Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again'."

        - Paul Simon

Spawning Sprawl

Oh, so THAT'S what felt so wrong last year when I used to drive around the edges of Visalia....

Heart and Mind

We arrive at truth not by reason alone, but also by the heart.

    - Blaise Pascal

Inside Looking Out

Seeing this quoted lately in various places.  I like it:

At 20 I worried what everyone thought of me. At 40, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. At 60 I realized no one was ever thinking of me.