On silence

Growing up, I frequently heard the proverb, "silence is golden."  Of course, where I came from, there was an idiom for everything, so it was easy to ignore them. Lately, however, I have taken time to reconsider the things that I learned, and dismissed while I was growing up.  Thus the topic silence.

As I have taken a new look at silence I have come to rediscover that silence is truly golden.  From silence I have come to learn and understand many things that I have taken for granted truly matter.  That moments that i take to enjoy the silence, I get to hear, and truly listen to the inner voice, which all of the noises of modern living mute out.

And the voices are wise. And i gain new incite, incite which is truly worth a lot of gold- even at todays inflated prices.

Silence is gold

Empathy, an introduction.

This topic should really be part of my discovering hope series, but I have not taken sufficient time to ponder the topic to the point where i can discuss it fully.  I think it is important for me to consider empathy as part of ones emotional arsenal, because it is human to feel pain, both physical and emotional.  It is true that all pain is in our head, and it is up to the person in pain to describe the hurt.  It is also important for the person listening, or treating the hurting individual to be able to "walk in the shoes of the one in pain." To do this, one has to either have experienced the kind of pain before, or vicariously understand the meaning of the experience.

Understanding pain is one thing, but helping one deal with pain is a great other.  Here empathy, messes with sympathy, and these two can make a big wash in the behavior of another.  I suppose the question that I am trying to deal with here is how to sympathize when I am not sure that i empathize with a situation.  For example how does one deal with the death of a loved one when they have not dealt with death, or divorce, or infidelity even.

I am sure that we see these things on TV or we read about them in books, and we can live the experiences through these media, but how is it when it comes to us and our friends?  I guess that it is me, I'm a lot bad at empathy, which makes me bad at compassion.  Here, compassion is one way to sympathize and show solidarity with others, in a moment of weakness.

The other question is, do we have to?  And the other shouldn't we.

On black and white

Some real artsy pictures, especially portraits look better in black and white.  I think that it is so because, the amount of contrast that exits between each grain or pixel within the picture is much limited, and only accounts for a two dimensional view of the picture.  Upon looking at the picture, the viewers brain enhances, by some brain correction algorithm, the picture to create depth, and upon doing so assumes beauty.

On the other hand full color pictures are not so impressive, possibly because the brain has less calculations to run before it can call it beautiful.

Consequently the brain perceives black and white as beautiful, it assumes that contrasting light and dark and by substituting the shades of grey for depth, that the challenge = the beauty of the art.  With color, the brain is not greatly challenged, or it makes shortcuts.  We can say that with a colored picture each of the primary and secondary colors are computed, followed by the amount of light and intensity of the light.

Since most of us "see" in color, we don't take much time to find depth in colorful images- we take them as is.

So where am I going with this?

Not sure.

But one conclusion, challenges make life beautiful.

New Picasa Web Albums Activity

Recent Uploads

ghost added 274 photos to Josh Wedding Feb 13, 2010 8:29:19 AM Post Comment Unsubscribe from this user.

To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.

Is free stuff good?

Some people say that the best things in life are free.  I have also heard if it's free take two.  College people love free, because cash is rare and advertizing for any one is no biggie.

Still some who claim to be wise state that nothing is free.

I believe that in all of the things that can be sold or given away, there is one that is both.  Life is free.  Strangely, life is also priceless.

Life is free to give, free to take, priceless to loose, and priceless to keep alive.

Some people say that life is cheap.  But they also say that talk is cheap.

I know that although all of the above may be true, the bottom line remains that life is good, and free.

On second chances

The sun shines in the sky giving us light and heat energy.  It comes back every morning renewing our lives with the energy that is essential for life and plant growth.  Like us the sun goes to bed and returns.  Of course, unlike us the sun is eternal (or will live longer than most of us)  however like the sun, in order to be useful we have to share our energy, even if most of it is hardly used.  Like the sun, we must strive to be consistent, to shine even when the clouds are out, even when it snows.

In life there will always be second chances, always the day after the rain.  If we always try to be consistent in the things we do, like the sun is always present, we will always be the most important object in our universe.

A thought for today.

I came from a culture where helping others is some thing we just do.  Its kinda like in American culture where making money is something we do, or if we cant, we dream about it. I taught about that because, i believe that it is important to want to do things to help others.  From just saying hi in order to brighten up ones day, to making people believe that they are worthy to inhabit this planet.  Or by just listening.

What can I do for you? (Don't worry, no strings are attached)

For the love of humans.

I think that we are all inherently good, and for that i love all of us.  Even the not so good ones.

On evil.

I spent a few days at home and heard many references to events as being the cause of people's purposeful use of evil to cause harm to another. On the first listening my conclusion (though I dare not express it) is that's not possible. My question is how can one cause the summoning of dark powers to cause the harm of another?

On the way back to my other home I took some time to ponder about this, actually I am doing this right now. If good is possible that some one can use the power of good to heal and to beneficial increase ones well being, then I suppose evil is also possible. The power of good is driven by others sense that the other ought to be treated in a humane manner. That the others happiness is just as important as the one. Since there are many was to produce goodness, then there has to be many ways to produce bad.

Having set up the logical understanding of the purpose of good and evil I must then consider the pathways to producing good or evil against another. Does good happen when we pray to the Gods or the universe? Can we wish good will unto someone? I suppose that we can. And if we can do this for good, then the converse is true. We can wish bad luck also. Now the biggest concept has to be dealt with. The administrator of good and evil.

Considering that there is a power that administers good and evil is a question of faith. That there is a magic force, whether we call it God or Satan that "inflicts" these forces upon us. Thus we have to accept that if there is faith in good that there has to be faith in evil too. There has to be a balance.

So now I have to admit that my initial reaction to my folks belief is wrong. Or that I am a hypocrite. If I believe in good, I cannot dismiss the possibility of evil.

Evil exists

Up in the sky

The world is beautiful. People are not. I feel like migrating to a new place. Somewhere where no one knows me. Where I can do whatever. I am just tired of being poor.