14 Nov 2005

I thought of how a machine might love. Like a flurry of processes all relating to one subject, which they all flutter around, and are about, and which the concentration of its processing power cannot seem to have enough of this subject, that which courses through its mechanical synapses. And I wonder if that feeling of love that we have — if the machine did not feel it like we do, couldn’t it still be love? For is it not really that the feeling of love is the least of it, in these final analyses? For I cannot imagine that all that love is is a feeling that one is in love — like I imagine that it is as an incandescent light, which gives off light and warmth, and the light is the point, and if one felt not the warmth of it, the point would still be there. And I imagine that the machine who could love, that he might feel something completely different, completely alien to what we do. Yet in my believing, love is love, and love would still be love, even among such aliens: that a heart can come in any shape.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

12 Nov 2005

All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain…we can be like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper
Baby take my hand…don’t fear the reaper
We’ll be able to fly…don’t fear the reaper
Baby I’m your man…

– Blue Oyster Cult

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:02 am

Gustave Moreau: Orpheus

Click on the pic for a larger version.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

11 Nov 2005

Other sins find their vent in the accomplishment of evil deeds, whereas pride lies in wait for good deeds, to destroy them.

– St. Augustine

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:02 am

Night Falls (2)

Night falls, and the darkness swallows up sound, as if the sky itself were louder in the light.

Night falls, and it is day which is the curtain that is swept aside, to reveal the vast outside.

Night falls, and I imagine the sky becomes one wide well of ink, in which I might dip and write prophecies.

Night falls, and the stars know me better than the sun, who do not blind me if I gaze upon them.

Night falls, and I wonder what it would be like if the dawn never came, and everything stayed hidden.

Night falls, and I think I am not more alone than in the day, but that the solitude stands out more.

Night falls, and I imagine I can see farther than the sky is deep, like the movie said, beyond infinity.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

10 Nov 2005

People forget that only the pattern is new, that what makes us up, comprises us, has been here since the beginning of beginnings. The most elemental of it, the energy, and the matter: what of it is not as old as time itself? Even the fact that the atoms had not the form that they have now, that the first hydrogens needed be churned in the furnaces of the stars to cook into the heavier elements: almost all of everything that is around now was there at the first, big bang. Again, the pattern is the only thing that has changed, 8 protons instead of 1, neutrons added, electrons attracted to gird it. Quantum mechanics tells us that matter spontaneously comes out of the void, but for the most part, these particles almost as instantly disappear. What is here, you might as well say that it has always been here. In this regard, we are all as old as the moon, the earth, the sun and stars. In us are ancient energies, matter unchanged from before there was a world here at all.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

8 Nov 2005

In the last analysis, the service the Christian does is not his, but Christ’s. Therefore he must not feel too keenly the burden of responsibility, because at the end of the day all he can say is, “We are unprofitable servants.” This knowledge, far from inhibiting action, actually releases the Christian from that appalling feeling of responsibility that has driven so many high-minded humanists to despair, even to suicide… Work done conscientiously by the Christian is his share in Christ’s service; but it is Christ’s service, and therefore the Christian need neither be proud because it has succeeded or overwhelmed because it has failed. The service of Christ is supremely expressed in the apparent failure of the Cross.

– Anthony T. Hanson

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:02 am

I think that night is when the sky closes its eyes and dreams,
the same, recurring theme, of a million fires, and infinity —
to awake so full of light when its eyes of dawn peer open.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

7 Nov 2005

There comes over some of us, sometimes, a notion that perhaps should always be shared, if one is so fortunate to experience it. It is the idea that everything is going to be all right — that somehow, beyond the reach of all mortal hopes, everything will at the end, end well. Though those who have religion have more form to these feelings, a spelled-out prophecy or some kind of formulation that actually describes how things will work out, I don’t believe one has to believe in anything to believe this. I imagine it is somewhat more easily done for those who have faith in a higher order to believe that there is a larger good that circumscribes the most terrible of tragedies, but hope is not monopolized by such faith. There shall always be those who have a kind of trust in the better side of humankind, no matter that they can only look forward to new generations to make amends for those past (and those present) and think not that some great power will create the ultimate justice. Not an impossible thing to hold.

It is, to put it in today’s parlance, the ultimate meme. We can see that it’s been put in songs more than once (Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” says it, for one; do a search for “everything’s gonna be alright” on Google, and you get more than two million hits). And it probably shall be put into songs as long as there are songs being written. To those who don’t feel it, perhaps have never felt it, the idea may be shrugged off as lighthearted wish-fulfillment whimsy, made by those who have no grasp of how grave the situation of the world truly is. But that it exists in such forms as the Book of Revelations, I think says differently. It is perhaps to be as in the spirit of a quote by Oscar Wilde, “The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.” That to fight the good fight is ultimately not in vain, however much the evil seems victorious. It is the idea of turning the other cheek: they cannot defeat us by their violence; we are better than that. It is a sign that says, “This way up.” Everything is going to be all right.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

5 Nov 2005

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns, it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world,
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

– The Beatles

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:02 am

Magritte: Time Transfixed

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posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

4 Nov 2005

If you have no dream, choose some unattainable desire. Just to exercise those muscles.

posted by John H. Doe @ 5:45 am

The more I look for meaning, the more it comes down to love. And I think it is no mistake that the worth of this life is so accessible, that anyone may achieve the highest that life has to offer — truly, the best of all living is in love. There is achievement and accomplishment, and I know I have had my share of success, and have tasted that particular of sweetnesses — and yes, there is meaning there, too, I will admit. I imagine some of rarefied airs that exist in the heights of attainment, that they must be heady indeed, if I might extrapolate of the modest elevations I have experienced. And love, it is so common a thing, really; but I must think that I would rather have someone who really loves me over any Nobel Prize. Because it is so everywhere, we may take it for granted, but I think that only speaks to the goodness of our creator. It saves us, and more. The meaning of life is love: it always has been, and it always will be. People only keep asking what it might be because they have so little idea what love is. But ask the man who has no questions of life: I will show you someone who loves someone.

posted by John H. Doe @ 5:40 am

3 Nov 2005

Finites

The day has burned away —
see its ashes drift across the darkness
(if you can make them out
by the light of the last glowing embers).
So much energy was spent
driving so incessantly forward,
so many blind leading so many blind.
We say we follow vision,
from those in front, who say they see,
to those in back, who say
that they believe; but dreams
are no morning star, never so sure,
and we take only what we may discover
as we excavate what we can from the future:
nowhere does it say,
“Dig here,” except when someone
is trying to sell the real estate.
And tonight we will dream again
until the morning star
lights low in the sky, tinder kits
to ignite the new day that we start,
and we will pour incessantly forward
and see what we may carve
from the grounds of the world to come:
the now is as ephemeral
as it is adamant, the throttle
where what may be decides what is,
and never stops revealing
the bottom line to our imagination.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

1 Nov 2005

The religious desire and effort of the soul to relate itself and all its interest to God and his will, is prayer in the deepest sense. This is essential prayer: uttered or unexpressed, it is equally prayer. It is the soul’s desire after God going forth in a manifestation, ... the soul striving after God. This is a prayer that may exist without ceasing, consisting, as it does, not in doing or saying this or that, but in temper and attitude of the spirit.

– P. B. Brown

posted by John H. Doe @ 3:53 am

Time is as ethereal as a dream, yet more certain than the solidest granite. Unless you bend it, like Einstein.

Space is the mystery no one thinks of, but try to think what nothing is. Now, given nothing, imagine space.

Energy is most commonly known as light and heat, but crack open any atom, and it is there, too. Just that usually, it’s not worth the effort to.

Matter is in no way related to the concept of matter, yet the concept of matter is all we will ever know. All our perception is third hand information.

*          *          *

Strange how these make everything up, as far as is measurable by human intellect. And there are four of them, just as there were four elements known by the ancient Greeks. Many might postulate a fifth, either in the old or new fundaments, as if to give the soul dimensions, but I believe that mystery enough lies in the four we can calibrate instruments to. Believe what you will.

posted by John H. Doe @ 3:47 am

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