Well, here we are again. The Fire Safety training was very interesting. It was great to learn about the various ways that your maintenance personnel inadvertantly reduce the effectiveness of your fire doors etc. Here's my top tip for today - when buying a smoke detector for the home, an optical detector is preferable to an ionisation detector on account of the fact that ionisation detectors contain a source of radioactivity (Americium-241, a product of the radioactive decay of Plutonium-241, which was first discovered during the Manhattan Project). While the quantity of radioactive material present is so low as to be unlikely to cause you much harm, the disposal of ionisation smoke detectors in an environmentally friendly manner continues to be a challenge.
The training centre was near to the Houses of Parliament, so I took the opportunity to take a little stroll along to the fabled seat of British Democracy. You might think that I would take such things for granted but then again I don't go to London very often, so its not every day that I get to act like a tourist and gawp at the Houses of Parliament.
Since getting back I haven't done a great deal (apart from going to work, of course) although today I rewatched Donnie Darko (which was great).
I still haven't got around to going to Virgin to ask them to replace my copy of "epocheclipse" with one that doesn't have the wrong album recorded onto the third CD.
I have given up (already) on attempting to read "The View From Nowhere" by Thomas Nagel. It really is a great book, but as per my previous entry, I don't seem to be able to concentrate on non-fiction these days. Instead I am now rereading Isaac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves".
I love Asimov. My Dad introduced me to Asimov when I was about 12. One day when he found me reading some obscure horror book which as far as I can recall involved Sherlock Holmes and werewolves (ok, my recollection is a bit sketchy as it was a long time ago, so I could be well off the mark about the content of the book). My Dad handed me Asimov's "The Stars Like Dust" and suggested that I would find it to be much more interesting. In some ways this incident of parental concern is rather atypical of my Dad as he didn't censor my tv / film viewing when I was a child. Hence, sometime prior to the age of 11 (I am able to date it on account of which house we were living in), I had the pleasure of seeing an extraterrestrial nightmare erupting from the abdomen of John Hurt while watching a pirated copy of Alien at my Dad's house, not to mention being allowed to watch such films as Texas Chainsaw Massacre at a young an tender age (and it did me no harm - I mean, look at the well-adjusted individual I have grown up to be
).
These days I don't have much to do with my Dad and indeed its been over ten years since I spoke to him (for reasons which I will discuss some other time).
Now here are some thoughts which I had after reading Shadowsilver's most recent entry .
I used to just take life and human behaviour for granted. Although I believed in a God, I just assumed that it was our day to day impulses and desires that lay behind human behaviour. Lately, I am finding myself wondering what lies behind it all. I mean I am starting to think more about Destiny, God, Evolution and mass human behaviour and I occasionally think I see a glimpse of a gigantic pattern. Sadly, I lack the time and energy to pursue it fully as the whole thing has opened up many, many questions to which I don't have the answers and which I would have to spend lots of time researching. I find myself thinking less and less that there is such a thing as an accident. I think that the choices we make may well form part of a greater design. I find myself thinking that the human race is moving towards something better but that we still have a long way to go. I even find myself thinking that all of the wars and terrible things that have happened may have been a necessary part of the process and that even evil people may be agents of some kind of Divine Plan.
That said, my reference to a Divine Plan should not be taken as an indication of belief in the Christian God. I don't believe in a personal, anthropomorphic God sitting on a throne of sapphire in a sea of glass surrounded by angels etc. I believe in a Transcendent Intelligence which exists without physical form (in the sense that we understand physical form). I also believe that we were once part of God and that therefore the Divine Plan for humankind is something in which we are co-conspirators with God!
I often find myself thinking of the way that it is easy to become enslaved by our past actions. Actions have a habit of setting into motion chains of cause and effect which in turn limit the future choices available to us so that we become effectively enslaved by our past actions.
Past habits of mind can enslave us in more subtle ways by colouring our decision-making processes without us noticing. Habits of mind which were useful, appropriate or necessary for dealing with past situations can cause us to keep on reacting to the world as if we were still living in the past. The world is constantly changing, but inside their heads, most people carry a snapshot of the world frozen in time and we interpret and react to each new situation by reference to our past. I wonder how many people react to life's daily pleasures and disappointments as if they were still little children or as if they were still teenage rebels? I expect that many, many people are stuck in these little internal traps.
It makes me think of a line by The Beatles, "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see".
The training centre was near to the Houses of Parliament, so I took the opportunity to take a little stroll along to the fabled seat of British Democracy. You might think that I would take such things for granted but then again I don't go to London very often, so its not every day that I get to act like a tourist and gawp at the Houses of Parliament.
Since getting back I haven't done a great deal (apart from going to work, of course) although today I rewatched Donnie Darko (which was great).
I still haven't got around to going to Virgin to ask them to replace my copy of "epocheclipse" with one that doesn't have the wrong album recorded onto the third CD.
I have given up (already) on attempting to read "The View From Nowhere" by Thomas Nagel. It really is a great book, but as per my previous entry, I don't seem to be able to concentrate on non-fiction these days. Instead I am now rereading Isaac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves".
I love Asimov. My Dad introduced me to Asimov when I was about 12. One day when he found me reading some obscure horror book which as far as I can recall involved Sherlock Holmes and werewolves (ok, my recollection is a bit sketchy as it was a long time ago, so I could be well off the mark about the content of the book). My Dad handed me Asimov's "The Stars Like Dust" and suggested that I would find it to be much more interesting. In some ways this incident of parental concern is rather atypical of my Dad as he didn't censor my tv / film viewing when I was a child. Hence, sometime prior to the age of 11 (I am able to date it on account of which house we were living in), I had the pleasure of seeing an extraterrestrial nightmare erupting from the abdomen of John Hurt while watching a pirated copy of Alien at my Dad's house, not to mention being allowed to watch such films as Texas Chainsaw Massacre at a young an tender age (and it did me no harm - I mean, look at the well-adjusted individual I have grown up to be
).
These days I don't have much to do with my Dad and indeed its been over ten years since I spoke to him (for reasons which I will discuss some other time).
Now here are some thoughts which I had after reading Shadowsilver's most recent entry .
I used to just take life and human behaviour for granted. Although I believed in a God, I just assumed that it was our day to day impulses and desires that lay behind human behaviour. Lately, I am finding myself wondering what lies behind it all. I mean I am starting to think more about Destiny, God, Evolution and mass human behaviour and I occasionally think I see a glimpse of a gigantic pattern. Sadly, I lack the time and energy to pursue it fully as the whole thing has opened up many, many questions to which I don't have the answers and which I would have to spend lots of time researching. I find myself thinking less and less that there is such a thing as an accident. I think that the choices we make may well form part of a greater design. I find myself thinking that the human race is moving towards something better but that we still have a long way to go. I even find myself thinking that all of the wars and terrible things that have happened may have been a necessary part of the process and that even evil people may be agents of some kind of Divine Plan.
That said, my reference to a Divine Plan should not be taken as an indication of belief in the Christian God. I don't believe in a personal, anthropomorphic God sitting on a throne of sapphire in a sea of glass surrounded by angels etc. I believe in a Transcendent Intelligence which exists without physical form (in the sense that we understand physical form). I also believe that we were once part of God and that therefore the Divine Plan for humankind is something in which we are co-conspirators with God!
I often find myself thinking of the way that it is easy to become enslaved by our past actions. Actions have a habit of setting into motion chains of cause and effect which in turn limit the future choices available to us so that we become effectively enslaved by our past actions.
Past habits of mind can enslave us in more subtle ways by colouring our decision-making processes without us noticing. Habits of mind which were useful, appropriate or necessary for dealing with past situations can cause us to keep on reacting to the world as if we were still living in the past. The world is constantly changing, but inside their heads, most people carry a snapshot of the world frozen in time and we interpret and react to each new situation by reference to our past. I wonder how many people react to life's daily pleasures and disappointments as if they were still little children or as if they were still teenage rebels? I expect that many, many people are stuck in these little internal traps.
It makes me think of a line by The Beatles, "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see".
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
Conspiring to cause this thing called lifeof all the habitual frames of reference you could have used, co-creator, co-contributor, co-collaborator, etc
That made me laugh.
Here we are sitting at a smoky card table, us and god, rubbing our hands together excellent.
Speaking of excellent, spot on sentiment by the way; Somewhere tickling the back of my mind I hear the echoing of truth. I cant understand it and may never, but excited just the same.
Try this axiom on It is not what we know, but what we yes
Knowledge must be acted on to be empowered or pertinent, knowledge alone without using or following through is analogous to no instead of yes.
Any who, I have been chagrining lifes little paths as of late, stupid people, and lack of compassion putting these into the context of divine plan helps to placate my blues, yet I cant help but feel like Ive got to do something? What this is I have yet to know or yes.
Cheers, Ill stay in touch same to ya'
I can see mistakes I've made coming back as if to ask me to make them again and again. I refuse to do this and struggle against it. Yet I know full well that I must be as a stone in a stream, touched but not moved.
On an aside note, Zelator, I realized belatedly that my comments in my journal about the meat pinata may have offended your vegan self. My apologies for being an insentive brute.