blog (January, 2007)
eating the finger that points at the moon
... to point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon.
-- D. T. Suzuki
That is why a theology of the Church has to begin with a consideration of the Church as the sign or sacrament of Christ and the kingdom he inaugurated, rather than the Church as an institution, but fidelity to Christ and to the kingdom of God that he embodies.
-- William Shannon, Seeking the Face of God
'[I]nstitutions create the needs and control their satisfaction, and, by so doing, turn the human being and her or his creativity into objects'.
Modern societies appear to create more and more institutions - and great swathes of the way we live our lives become institutionalized. 'This process undermines people - it diminishes their confidence in themselves, and in their capacity to solve problems... It kills convivial relationships. Finally it colonizes life like a parasite or a cancer that kills creativity.'
-- Mark K. Smith, ivan illich: deschooling, conviviality and the possibilities for informal education and lifelong learning
with quotes from Adult Education at the Crossroads, Matthias Finger and Jose Manuel Asun
I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.
-- Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
three link thurs: 2007-08-02
- Stuff (Paul Graham)
- Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they take. Those are the only things worth having.
- Time as Chimera (How to Save the World)
- When we measure our accomplishments, the progress of our lives, in terms of clock time, what happens when we find that that measure is a chimera (="a fanciful mental illusion")?
- An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth (Bruce Mau Design)
- 4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
27. Read only left-hand pages.
29. Think with your mind. Forget technology.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
treading watts, milling about
A culture that invents escalators and stairmasters is a culture that needs to assess what it's actually talking about. [...]
And that's fine to have projects: to lose weight or to exercise; if you like it, do it. But to actually go to a hall of mirrors -- in the middle of an energy crisis, -- to have all the healthy people in the culture go to a hall of mirrors and run on an actual metaphor for effort going nowhere, and then plug that thing in so it's an electric treadmill that actually draws power! -- that is a culture that needs to step back and look at itself.
[...]
If you look at a testimony of love from two thousand years ago it can still exactly speak to you, whereas medical advice from only 100 years ago was ridiculous. How does that happen? [...] I don't put science really as the way I get to any of my answers. It's just helpful. It's poetry that I look to -- it's the clatter of recognition. You know it's fine -- everybody has different ways, but I attest that poetry works pretty well. It's... it's got a good heart.
-- Jennifer Michael Hecht, interview on Point of Inquiry
Point of Inquiry is the podcast from the Center for Inquiry, (A Global Federation Committed to Science, Reason, Free Inquiry, Secularism, and Planetary Ethics.) I had found their anti-religion slant overly religious, but I gave the podcast another try at Ilya's recommendation of this episode.
the whole story in one line
Here’s the whole story in one line. This is the greatest discovery of the scientific enterprise: You take hydrogen gas, and you leave it alone, and it turns into rosebushes, giraffes, and humans.
-- Brian Swimme, Awakening to the Universe Story: Interview with Brian Swimme (What is Enlightenment? Magazine)