On the Shoulders of Giants

If I have seen so far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

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So I set free the hearts filled with hatred, keep our bodies sacred

As I set free all you abusers, this is transformation

-oklama

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Our lives will never be the same

I've cut you out of the frame

These Severed ties shall remain

We should grow better this way

I wish you could believe again

(I wish you could believe again)

I wish it were an even stage

(I wish it were an even stage)

The sun will never beam the same

Approach these hallow remains

I'll never know why you came

And cut my head from the frame

I wish you didn't leave this way

(I wish you didn't leave this way)

I wish we could've ruled again

(I wish we could've ruled again)

Our psalm has now been erased

We're a ruined cause

We've watched this wave

Consume our flame

The sky will never be the same

I've cut you down from the plains

Two Severed lives now remain

Things should go better this way

I wish that we could meet again

(I wish that we could meet again)

Regenerate the bond we crave

(Regenerate the bond we crave)

Our psalm has now been erased

We're a ruined cause

We've watched this wave

Consume our flame

Our psalm has now been erased

We're a ruined cause

We've watched this wave

Consume our flame

[louiexiv]

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. "The past," he thought, "is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

“The Student” - Anton Chekhov

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Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable, and wisdom is the discernment of what is inevitable.

Various

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Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

Chuck Palahnuik

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When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.

Ram Dass

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When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the slightest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.

Hsin Hsin Ming

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Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.

Carl Jung, Researches into the Phenomenology of Self

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From what I understand of existentialism, it says we should make our own meaning in an indifferent universe. McKenna corrected Sartre by saying nature is not mute, as Sartre felt, but obviously it is humans who are deaf. Existentialism seems like an ends, but I’ve learned that it can be more like a phase. Growing up in Florida, I reacted against Christianity, which said to find meaning in the Bible. It seemed much more reasonable and attractive to me to find my own meaning, so in a way existentialism led me to nature by taking me away from Christianity, which also ignores nature. We’re immersed in meaning, it now seems to me. Nature is pure meaning, it never becomes meaningless, it’s all connected and moving toward greater complexity, but all that can be obscured by governments, corporations, media, school, advertisements, etc., as it was for me my first three decades or so of life.

Tao Lin

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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain

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A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.

AW