< Notes...

“Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.” — George Eliot

“Simplicity is a great virtue, but it requires hard work to achieve and education to appreciate. And to make matters worse, complexity sells better.” — Edsger Dijkstra

Many of us have experienced that best-selling complexity first hand. I prefer simplicity, and believe on reducing rather than adding. Hard fact is, “nobody gets promoted for the complexity they avoided”.

➝ Via Hacker News.

At the end of every episode of “The Big Bang Theory” (★★★★☆) they used to show a Chuck Lorre Productions “card”. This one was my all-time favourite:

The Prophet
A young woman stepped forward from the throng and asked, “O’ great prophet, tell us how we might find love that is unconditional, unwavering and unending.” The prophet did not answer right away. He looked off into the distance, gathering his thoughts. Silence descended upon the crowd. Then he turned his gaze upon the young woman and said, “Get a dog.”

“Our job is to taste free air. Your so-called boss may own the clock that taunts you from the wall but, my friends, the hour is yours.”

“Page 197 slaps”. From “The You You Are” book comes that excerpt, which will be relevant for the ages.

Calling a night with a couple of notes holding Asian wisdom. The previous from Japanese Matsuo Bashō. This one attributed to Chinese Laozi.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” — Matsuo Bashō.

Today I learned about José Mujica, because he died. It seems he was a good man, with plenty of “interesting” takes, friendships, and connections; all enough to cause concern. This phrase attributed to him, though, resonates:

“No soy pobre, soy sobrio, liviano de equipaje, vivo con lo justo para que las cosas no me roben la libertad.”

I came across this sentence—and quote—today on the Fediverse, and the more I think about it, the more I realise how much truth it carries.

“All cruelty springs from weakness.” — Seneca

“If I could use words / like scattering flowers and fallen leaves, / what a bonfire my poems would make.”

Oh, Mariko-Sama, how much admiration you deserve! Anna Sawai performance was superb on the series. Thank you for making me cry.

There is wisdom, even in animated movies. Especially in animated movies.

“Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that does not make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be.”
— Soothsayer, Kung Fu Panda.

A quote from Flemming Rose (whom I got to know about a bit more today):

“If a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission.”

From “No Country for Old Men”:

Anton Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket, sir. Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.

“I’m tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I’m tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we’s going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world… every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head… all the time. Can you understand?”

I found this phrase from Frank Herbert’s “Dune” posted on the Fediverse by MrBadger42 to be, perhaps, perennially true.

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

From Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective:

“‘You see this goblet?’ asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. ‘For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.’”

Also, from The Wise Heart:

“One day Ajahn Chah held up a beautiful Chinese tea cup, ‘To me this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.’ When we understand the truth of uncertainty and relax, we become free.”

And, from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations:

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

“Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we’ve grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched, pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.”

The above from one of “Seinfeld” episodes.

“🎶 Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

Saw this on the Fediverse, from an automated account (bot) suitably named Picard Tips: “Don’t assume anything is possible or impossible until you’ve asked the people who will be doing the work.” Oh man… so true!

If only I had the state of mind that Hokusai had! For me these words come as the perfect example of optimism, and hope. Reading them makes me feel at ease.

“…until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice. At 73 years I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects and fish. Thus when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive. Those of you who live long enough, bear witness that these words of mine are not false.” — One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji.

➝ Via The British Museum.

“It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.

“We are lost in space, just as the planets, stars, suns, universes. We are all lost, on a collision course to the unknown; our end inevitable.” — That was my first (and only) entry on Anytype. I am liking the app so far!

Forget religion for a moment, “it’s easy if you try”. This, from Hinduism’s Karma theory on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, is true. I know it, you know it.

“Now as a man is like this or like that, according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be: a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad. He becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds. And here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will; and as is his will, so is his deed; and whatever deed he does, that he will reap.”

For his book “On the Meaning of Life”, Will Durant asked a number of people “What is the meaning of life?” Amongst the replies he got, one was from H.L. Mencken:

“You ask me, in brief, what satisfaction I get out of life, and why I go on working. I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism—in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle […]

When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness. No show, however good, could conceivably be good for ever.”

A friend, and colleague asked me “How are you?”. In the US that is used often as a polite way to say hello. I replied “Could be better, but also could be worse. So I will not complain. I am how I am supposed to be.” It came to mind quickly, as I remembered Gandalf’s reply to Frodo’s “You are late!” — “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”

From the SQLite license:

“May you do good and not evil
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.