Thursday, November 26, 2015

Ironies

On my last run, a bunch of ironies and paradoxes popped into my head. Here are some off them:


Realizing that the self is an illusion fosters respect for the selves of others.

The self may be a valuable concept. But it sure gets in the way.

Getting lost in others is the way to find your self.

Understanding the soul as the body-in-motion doesn’t deny soul; it constitutes it.

Matter (and materialism) isn’t opposed to spirit (and spirituality); it’s the condition for it.

An authentic theist is a nontheist.

The weak build walls.

Knowledge is the obstacle to thinking.

Fearing strangers makes fearless enemies.

Patriotism weakens love of country.

I am most conscious when engaged in the world.

Righteousness is contrary to an ethical life.

An ethical life contradicts morality.

The greatest warrior is the one who never must war.

Fighting a war is usually an admission of defeat.

Theism terminates transcendence.

Want order? Appreciate chaos.

Ardent belief is the loss of faith.

The best teacher remains a student.

The ugly is the frame of beauty.

To hold on to loved-ones, we let them go.

Keeping others outside puts us in prison.

Open boundaries make better neighbors.

A disaster is never unprecedented.

Exaggerate evil and you reinforce it.

Exceptionalism makes us less than ordinary.

Accepting limits is the beginning of infinity.

Want beauty? Wallow in dirt.

When you think about them, all truths are false.

To exist we need to believe in others.

When we know everything, we know nothing.

Common sense is mostly nonsense.

All is fiction, even nonfiction.

Authentic experts are amateurs.

Myth is the path to reality.

Most that matters is invisible.

The real is the relational.

Only God knows truth. The rest of us make it happen.

Expectation breeds disappointment. Hope calls to action.

To affirm is to deny.

To posit we have to negate.

The positive is found only in the negative.

Thinking is putting out majorana particles—where matter and anti-matter meet.

Happiness is the pause in suffering.

Suffering is source of solidarity.

The supernatural is nothing around everything.

Empathy suffers. Compassion acts.

When you say yes to someone, you say no to something.

Belief makes gods human. Thinking makes humans divine.

To know the gods, I must deny them.

The future is now and never then.

Theists are too serious about their beliefs. Atheists are too believing in their seriousness.

When we vigorously affirm the gods, we deny them.

The objective world is mass illusion.

Only the imperfect can reach for perfection.

Discontent is the secret of contentment.

Starting at the end is the beginning.

Reconstructing the past is planning the future.

What we are getting at is always between the lines.

Artists depict what cannot be depicted.

The obvious is the unknown.

All tall tales are short.

Wholly out there is holy in here

When I am absorbed in the present, I transcend it.

To become human, seek the divine. To seek the divine, be human.

Only an empty vessel can be full.

To never give up, give up.

Slavery is the road to freedom.

A liberated mind thinks everything and knows nothing.

A horizontal mind hits walls. A vertical mind is infinite.

Every point is an entry to infinity.

Zero makes everything count.

When I touch some body, I feel my own.

Bodies in love have no bounds.

Giving away my body is the essence of love

You don’t need feet to dance.

To enter another’s soul, flow in her style.

Appreciating the canvas is painting with the artist.

Criticism is the height of praise.

You only respect those with whom you can disagree.

Odor is in the nose of the smeller. Do I stink if there is no one there to smell.

The best of games keeps changing the rules.

Without rules you don’t need rulers.

To be thoughtful, give away your thoughts. To be thoughtless, hold on to them.

To have love, give it away. To have everything, give way to everything.

To create things is to abandon them.

Only the random is certain.

Order is overrated.

The wager itself makes the bet pay off.

There are no natures in nature unless we put them there.

Never let a god get in the way of the divine.

Playful gods are more fun than a Mighty One.

Use rules to subvert them.

A friend is always there when she isn’t.

Keeping rules dulls the game.

Only when I am right am I wrong.

Uncertainty is the acme of life.

The only absolute is contingency.

Relativity is just a new absolute. All absolutes are relative.

We are created in the image of friends.

To discover reality, imagine it!

The way to truth is error.

Magic and mystery leave when we know it all.

A good friend is one I don’t have to hang on to.

Playing the game is winning enough.

A fence, like violence, is sometimes necessary but always bad.

When passion leads, bliss follows.

Accepting the finality of death is the pinnacle of life.

Being careful reduces care. Curiosity requires carelessness.

The Mind of God is a tabula raza. So go write on it!

Can’t know beauty without ugly. Can’t know evil without good. Can’t know light without dark. Can’t no without yes.

To know is to mix a no with a yes. Consciousness is nothing put to being.

The universe runs on alternating current.
  
Consciousness is a cookie-cutter. It cuts the world into bite sizes. In a cut something stays and something goes.

A concept is a category cutting the flow. It cannot be without the flow. It cannot be at all.

Mind is concept cutting. Mind is image making. Mind is fictionalizing.

Not all valuable concepts are true. Indeed, none of them are. They are products of imagination.

Mind is thingifying. There is nothing to something and something to nothing.

If you know consciousness, you’ve missed it.

When you solve the mystery, the book ends.

If you have solved the mystery, you have closed your mind.

Irony is the humor of contradiction, the silliness of logic.

Physics, including neuroscience, is contemporary alchemy. If alchemy turns gold into lead, so what?

A sincere leader is a crazed animal. Keep your distance.

The one who shouts the most has the smallest stick.

Beware the man who keeps his principles,

Clear immovable principles make a serial killer.

Evangelists are terrorists. They scare the hell into people.

If education isn’t fun, it isn’t education.

Creation is just letting nothing out to play.

We can make something out of nothing, that's creative art.

We can't make nothing out of something, only God does that.

Entropy and syntropy are always at play.

When we make too much of things, we belittle everything.

Playing with ideas is the ultimate sport. Taking them seriously kills the game.

Enjoy today. Its all there is right now.

True believers are a danger to faith.

Keeping faith is letting go of beliefs.

Know your illusions and you know most everything.

Share your illusions; they are probably better than mine.

Gravity is a force that isn’t. It’s the fabric that brings us together.

Force is compulsive motion. Energy is voluntary motion.

May the Force be not with you!

Every stance I take is a step in an ultra marathon.

When I am running from my self, it is sure to catch me.

When I run toward nothing, I will never be caught.

If you hear gods’ voices, enjoy the trip. If you believe in them, please pass by.

They, who idolize their prophets, make them lower than animals.

To root out an evil, change the system. To change a system, change the rules. To change the rules, change the paradigm. To change the paradigm, create a new one. To create a new one, use imagination.

The problem is usually how we are identifying it.

Attacking it directly seldom solves a problem.

The problem isn’t what we think it is until we think about it.

The last thing I need is another thing.


Infidels are those who attack infidels.

Violence is often caused by pacifiers. War is usually waged by peace-makers.

He who humiliates another dehumanizes himself.

There is no such thing as universal love. Love is always specific and personal.

Solidarity comes from shared suffering.

Cruelty is a product of those who believe god is on their side.

Those who claim that the US is a Christian nation have a bad opinion of Christianity.

Authentically religious people resist religion.

All these sayings are meaningful unless you think about them.

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