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Showing posts from July, 2004
"To me, it sounds as though the point Da Vinci was trying to make somewhat parallels a point C.S. Lewis makes in his book, Mere Christiantity. This 'everything in balance' does make sense. One illustration Lewis uses is that you can understand sleep and why it is important when you're awake, but not while you're sleeping. Or perhaps a more appropriate example is something that i am often susceptable to: when you stay up late many nights cramming for that important math exam that carries significant weight on your GPA, you do not see any of the mistakes ('careless errors' so to speak) that you may make in solving a problem, no matter how many times you check over it. then when the exam is returned, now that you have had some time to relax, catch up on sleep and not worry about the exam, you notice those careless errors that you shouldn't have made, like adding when you clearly should have multiplied. schools schedule prolonged bre

tao of stephen/ leonardo da vinci

I have always tried to live and enlighten others to my theory of "living in balance", which states; everything that is of the utmost importance, and morally upheld in ones life must be used, utilized, revealed to others, and obtained, in balance.  i am open to arguments and discussions disproving my theory of balance, but thus far have run into little obsticles when one considers the Christian crusades, terrorism in the name of religion, drug abuse, the workaholic's child, alcholoism, etc. while reading on the life of leonardo da vinci (1452-1519) i discovered he to believed in a theory of balance. Here was a well known painter who thought of a flying machine 400 years before the airplane first took off. He was a sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, scientist, and mathematician. with quite a resume' one would consider him to be an overachieving workaholic, but contrary to belief Leonardo said... "Every now and then go away have a little relaxation, f

having writ

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. Omar Khayy'am (1048-1122)  

published

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/article.php?sid=4031

solitude/alchemist

i was reminded of the book "the alchemist" today when it talked about the "whole world conspiring together when you concede to follow your dream". my friend max and christine sent me a gift, which included a book called 'wisdom of the ages' by wayne dyer. here we are on modesty talking about solitude and serenity and the first chapter of my new book is entitled "meditation" and starts out with these two amazing quotes; Learn to be silent, Let your quiet mind listen and absorb. Pythagoras (580 BC- 500 BC) and my favorite... 'All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.' - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) On this topic of silence and solitude Mr. Dyer adds this... "It has been estimated that the average person has sixty thousand separate thoughts each and every day. The problem with this is that we have the same sixty thousand thoughts today that we had yesterday, and we'll

atheist at first sip

"The first sip from the cup of natural science makes one an atheist, but at thebottom of the cup, God awaits." - Werner Heisenberg, nuclear physicist thanks Lianne for the quote -estaban

thoughts for jess on big city solitude

"jessi, how fortunate you are to live in a city where "losing yourself in the crowd" is an option.  the smaller the city, the more elusive our precious solitude becomes.  in mine, because of the size and the job which i hold, to step outside is to be instantly recognized and instantly hailed.  here lie a few suggestions -- "tips and tricks," if you will --  pulled from the experiences of a jealous hunter of loneness and seclusion:for coffee shops -- the most obvious haunts for those seeking solitude:  choose the darkest, loneliest corner.  don't make eye contact with other loners.  rotate.  avoid becoming a "regular."  if the baristas begin pulling your shots before you are fully through the door, gather your belongings and move onward.less obvious:  the Industrial Part of Town.  most cities have them, and once the steel workers and cannery operators have called it a day, it is yours for the taking.cemeteries:  not for everyone, obviously, but if
"Estaban, I'm trying to write something in reply to "Please do research if you believe or don't believe in evolution and write me and tell me why/why not." buthey, that's no piece of cake *shock* I don't believe in evolution, at least not in evolution as the origin of life. But why..? Well of course I have my arguments but i don't want to get a story like "cos the Bible tells me so - now I have to invent a nice theory that 6000 years makes fit in the I-don't-know-how-many million years of evolution" it is not like that. I know what I believe but it's hard to write it Darwin another language and in a short message. I'm trying, I'm trying. It's underconstruction, like 90% of all the things I'm doing." -L L please do not use the bible as a reference point on evolution simply because a debate between you and an evolutionists would end quickly in defeat because a macro-evolutionists would most likely NOT bel

is solitude in downtown NYC possible?

"Dear Stephen, You are absolutely right about the fact that silence and solitude can do a lot of good. But I find it extremely hard to find that in this day and age. Where I live, there is nowhere to go to get away from the noise or the phone calls. So what's a person to do? Anyways, my question to you is: What do you suggest us busy city kids do?" -jessi mo jessi... well first i would suggest what is probably the obvious which is to get away, plan a trip to camp a couple hours away, Buddha wondered out of his castle and wondered about the kingdom and eventually out of the city to seek enlightenment, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert and many times He is said to wonder "into the wilderness". So if you can, leave. Get in your car fill up the tank and pick a direction. go. or bus, or train, or hitchhike, etc. but more realistically i totally understand that sometimes those things are impossible but honestly one time i found solitude on the st

solitude + silence = serenity

previously i believe i quoted a saying that said "solitude is the furnace of transformation", but i have learned through the course of this week that i believe that it is not only solitude, but silence. try going one hour with no phone, no computer, no music, no talking, no internet, just you and serenity. i don't think many of you will try it because a lot of us are afraid of the outcome... your afraid of what you might hear in the still,   yourself. others will start, they will get away into the woods, and then 10 minutes into it their mind will begin to wander and think of 110 other things they should be doing, and 10 minutes after that return home to reply to that email or return that "urgent call". but if you succeed in going an entire hour of silence, not saying one word, in solitude, i think you will find one thing easier to discover...yourself.

Evolution continued

"To Joseph. (meh... Don't post it if you think it's worthless ;) questionnaires mark words I wasn't sure about) I've searched too - I have found only parts of the entire answer so I'm still searching. But a book which helped me much was a book from Peter school. Not saying that I completely agree with it, but it is at least very interesting. He tries to prove that the creation is not an evolution, but the opposite: it's a degeneration. In Eden it was perfect and since then it went worse and worse, that would explain things like Aids and Sears: new faults in the human DNA. (peters opinion about mirco-evolution is that it's not evolution but just variety(?)) To me it was a complete new idea. It has been translated in English and here's where you can find the first chapter(?): http://www.evolutionisdegeneration.com/start.html click on 'the book' (it's a horrible site but... you'd just read the text" -L

letter from a skeptic

"dear stephen, first thanks for your honesty about not knowing all the answers. I respect the fact that you admit your imperfect, I think we all are and for 'leery' to judge you is sad because it sounds like she was more or less condemning and not encouraging. But whatever. Anyway, to be honest I struggle now with the fact that evolution seems so reasonable, I look at darwins "tree of life" and feel it gives a plausible explanation of how we got here. I understand that you don't have all the answers, but please help, im drowning in doubt." -joseph "the skeptic" dearest joseph, I think you speak for alot of us, when you say that you have become a skeptic because of what you have seen in your high school text books. But here is where I stand. I am a micro-evolutionist-intelligent design-"big bang"* theorist. Macro-evolution is the theory that all things evolve slowly "by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations&#

burn me, and you only burn me out

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/article.php?sid=4031