Alan Watts Says: “For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people,are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other. At the input end they even develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow. As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together in groups to fight with other groups. In time, the tubes grow such an
abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering variety of forms. There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd.”
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What is the point?
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I had another epiphany today. I asked myself some questions and tried to answer them. What is the point in the stuff I do? Why do I care? Do we find meaning in the journey? Meaning in caring? Asking these very questions gives me the reasons. The end of the goals does not matter as much, like all things in life, we know it ends eventually.
The point is living through the hard and good times. To be curious, to see what happens next. Anticipation, humor and sometimes anger. Admiring beauty in nature or a beautiful lady. More important is the love of what you do. The feeling you get when you get something done or realize you managed to do something you previously thought impossible.
But most of all, the point is to not know. The point is to find out. The point is to love and see.
To cheesy, well maybe I have wacky thoughts. I’ll leave you with some interesting quotes. These are from Science Fiction authors, some I’ve read whole books; wish I could make time for all of them. Quotes like these answers some of my questions and some of them hits the you, face on.
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
“I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”
“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science fiction gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov
“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”
“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”
“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting pieces together.”
Ray Bradbury
“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”
“I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.”
“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
“Certainly it constitutes bad news when the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit.”
Philip K. Dick
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” (Dune)
“If you ask ‘Should we be in space?’ you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.”
“Show me a completely smooth operation and I’ll show you someone who’s covering mistakes. Real boats rock.”
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”
Frank Herbert
“That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers…What they really hate are lousy programmers.”
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!”
Larry Niven
“If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.”
John Scalzi
“Science is magic that works.”
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
“I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can’t help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.”
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.” (The Time Machine)
“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”
“The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.”
H.G. Wells
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.”
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
“A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
“I simply regard romantic comedies as a sub genre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”
Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
“In my life I have found two things of priceless worth – learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say ‘I have learned’ and ‘I have loved,’ you will also be able to say ‘I have been happy.”
Arthur C. Clarke, Rama II
“All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.”
Amie Kaufman, Illuminae
Server moved and a few quotes
So it turns out the moving the server was not that hard, if you know what you are doing. There was more than 10 years of stuff on it. Sometimes it is good to clean out.
I’ve thought about a lot of things the past week. Here are a few quotes that I stumbled into. First one I wrote myself.
Some people’s confidence comes from when others are silenced. That is the worst game you can play and everyone ends up hating.
Warkanum
“Often, the greater our ignorance about something, the greater our resistance to change.”
Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter
“Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one’s irritation so long as one doesn’t make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
“The first and most important field of philosophy is the application of principles such as “Do not lie.” Next come the proofs, such as why we should not lie. The third field supports and articulates the proofs, by asking, for example, “How does this prove it? What exactly is a proof, what is logical inference, what is contradiction, what is truth, what is falsehood?” Thus, the third field is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first. The most important, though, the one that should occupy most of our time, is the first. But we do just the opposite. We are preoccupied with the third field and give that all our attention, passing the first by altogether. The result is that we lie – but have no difficulty proving why we shouldn’t.”
Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness
“It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body; for it is better to die than to live badly.”
Epictetus
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Common man’s patience will bring him more happiness than common man’s power.”
Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
“No man is good by chance. Virtue is something which must be learned.”
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
“Stop obeying a dictator; you will then see that he is nothing! Stop obeying a king; you will then see that he is nothing! If you refuse the Devil, you will then see that he will shade away!”
Mehmet Murat ildan