Status-driven, conspicuous consumption thrives from the language of novelty... the economic institutions, and who we are as people, locked together to drive an engine of growth. And this engine is not just economic value; it is pulling mate...rial resources relentlessly through the system, driven by our own insatiable appetites, driven in fact by a sense of anxiety. Adam Smith, 200 years ago, spoke about our desire for a life without shame. A life without shame: in his day, what that meant was linen shirts, and today, well, you still need the shirt, but you need the hybrid car, the HDTV, two holidays a year in the sun, the netbook and iPad, the list goes on - an almost inexhaustible supply of goods, driven by this anxiety. And even if we don't want them, we need to buy them, because, if we don't buy them, the system crashes. And to stop it crashing over the last two to three decades, we've expanded the money supply, expanded credit and debt, so that people can keep buying stuff. Tim Jackson
Yuval Ron & Omar Faruk Tekbilek - Remembrance! Alternative path of peace, co-existence and the nature of being. It is "ONE".
A vision for a shared and lasting prosperity. Redefining prosperity to something that is more meaningful, less materialistic and less reliant on growth.
Prosperity without Growth
“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that betwe...en a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Martin Luther King
Thou shalt not be a Victim. Thou shalt not be a Perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a Bystander! "enhanced interrogation techniques" a transgression of human rights; Courage and goodness do not live in instruments of torture: when we break Human Rights principles and promises, who's to say that more will not be broken?
Miles from India
All things in life vibrate due to the movement of electrons and protons of every atom, molecule and substance. Matter is simply a collection of vibrating waves of energy. When we make a vibrational sound the sound wave transforms into information that is transported into molecules within the body. With our emotions which is energy in motion they can be either positive or negative and We have the choice to make change.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". Sherlock Holmes In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes claims he does not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, as such information is irrelevant to his work. Directly after having heard that fact from Watson, (his close friend and chronicler) he says he will immediately try to forget it. He says he believes that the mind has a finite capacity for information storage, and so learning useless things would merely reduce his ability to learn useful things.
Leonard Susskind discusses the indestructability of information and the nature of black holes in a lecture entitled The World As Hologram.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky. I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast. My cheeks like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have kissed young love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end, I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend. I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well. I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I gave a share of my soul to the world, when and where my course is run. I know that another shall finish the task I surely must leave undone. I know that no flower, nor flint was in vain on the path I trod. As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God, Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
"Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars. We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this work and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth. We are one species. We are star stuff harvesting star light." Carl Sagan
Universe: Journey from Earth to the Edge of the Cosmos
From Earth to the Universe (FETTU) is an image collection of astronomical objects ranging from our home planet through the Galaxy to the farthest corners of the Universe. These images contain data from both telescopes on the ground and in space that observe in many different types of light - from radio to optical to X-rays and beyond
A free man is someone who is true to himself who follows his dream and turn them to reality. You have to put fear to one side, it will always be there but you have to follow your path. It is all possible if you put enough energy into it. A free man is some one who tries to make his dreams come true.
Sue Austin: Deep sea diving in a wheelchair
I clung to earth and her dear shapes, her density, her herbage, her juice. I wanted her volume, and I wanted to hear her throb. Emily Carr
Bill Viola video installations deals with the central themes of basic human experiences, such as birth and death, and aspects of consciousness. His works seem to be spiritual exercises that help observers understand the meaning of humankind. His videos are usually structured and based on the orbit five basic elements: earth, fire, water, air... and dualism expressed by couple of elements such as life and death, light and dark, stressed and calm, loud and quiet and the idea that you can’t understand what you’re looking at unless you know its opposite.
Piano Concerto No.20 & 24 were the only piano concertos Mozart wrote in the minor key. The D minor Concerto begins in uncertainty. After that Mozart builds a big climax which only subsides to allow the piano to enter, in a most understate way. He’s not interested in the themes, he just wants to ruminate on the mood of the material. The melodic ideas are all held by the orchestra with the piano accompanying. Then the dialogue between soloist and orchestra begins with high degree of tension throughout.
Tibet’s eleventh century poet-saint, Milarepa, traveled throughout Tibet meditating in small caves and remote villages. This film, a delight for the senses, reveals the myths and worldviews of a distant people, the light and shadow of the Himalayas's virgin territory that is not adulterated by conventional or institutionalized spirituality.
The Impossible Love, Tristan & Isolde The story of interior emotional conflict, a tortured, troubled soul, filled with longing, pride, and confusion. Lying mortally wounded on the coast of Brittany, Tristan feverishly awaits the Ship carrying his beloved Isolde. He is certain her love has the power to restore him but the princess arrives only in time to see him die. Here are two people destined to be together even though all the world has been thrown in front of them hellbent on keeping them separate. They share only passioned, fleeting moments with one another, and do what they can despite their better judgement. ... if you are not here at home with us, There's always your name at the beginning and at the end of my words, So much I spoke of your name that your scent set on my breaths. The scent of your beautiful words,...
.., More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness...Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair."...You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Underground - Emir Kusturica:Once upon a time...there was a country
The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it-aliens. And we are, I think, quite urgently in need of coming to feel that we are the eternal universe, each one of us (but we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it). Alan Watts, The Nature Of Consciousness
Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age - Modris Eksteins Tale of a dancer turned art dealer who leaped around the truth as well as the stage in an all too familiar decadent city, with its tangles of celebrity culture, politics-as-spectacle and mass-consumed “truthiness”, that would later host the extended madness, the “solar dance”.
Keep alive the eternal human questions which testify to our desire for transcendence and our longing for authentic forms of life, truly worthy of being lived. It is precisely this uniquely human spiritual yearning which inspires our quest for truth and for communion and which impels us to communicate with integrity and honesty. Benedict XVI
Benjamin Britten - Peace and Conflict What is it that he has spent his life searching for? Knowledge? A lost innocence? And must the pursuit of beauty, of love, lead only to chaos? Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Brittenn - Arvo Part
