havingadandyday's Xanga

Monday, March 05, 2007

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:43:19 GMT

3-4-7
Brand New - You Won't Know

When you give a shilling to a beggar - do you realize that you are giving it to yourself? When you help a lame dog over a stile - do you realize that you yourself are being helped? When you kick a man when he is down - do you realize that you are kicking yourself? Give him another kick - if you deserve it!

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. - William Blake

Be wise, disciplined and non-violent and you will find peace. Be aware both night and day, continue your practice, and you will attain Nirvana. - Buddha

In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is likely to hurt. 'Posthumous Pieces' by Wei Wu Wei

I have argued that every human being is born with an innate drive to experience altered states of consciousness periodically -- in particular to learn how to get away from ordinary ego-centered consciousness. I have also explained my intuition that this drive is a most important factor in our evolution, both as individuals and as a species. Nonordinary experiences are vital to us because they are expressions of our unconscious minds, and the integration of conscious and unconscious experience is the key to life, health, and spiritual development, and fullest use of our nervous systems. - Andrew Weil, M.D.

If you want to have friends, you must be friendly. If you want to make peace, you must be peaceful. - Peace Pilgrim

Friday, January 26, 2007

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:16:40 GMT

1-26-7
Fountains of Wayne - All Kinds of Time

There are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being. - Albert Einstein

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 08:44:34 GMT

12-6-6
Alien Ant Farm - Courage

"The less routine the more life."
Amos Bronson Alcott

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 20:40:11 GMT

9-23-6
Sugarcult - Majoring In Minors

I've seen chaos like no other. If I had to move my child into a residence hall with no beds, desks, or drawers, I don't think I could handle it as well as parents here did. Awesome.

I'm eating Reese's Puffs adn they're really tasty. Just thought I'd share. This video is the fucking funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Guess I'm not the biggest freak out there. http://bryan.imeem.com/video/syEmbJfo/this_girl_is_really_afraid_of_pickles

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
- Mark Twain

Meg

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:34:31 GMT

8-30-6
Fuel - Shimmer

Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.

The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.

- Albert Einstein

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:23:49 GMT

8-22-6
Blue October - You Make Me Smile

You are now in control of your life. You see, the ego is never in control. The ego is controlled by wishes for comfort and convenience on the part of the body, by demands of the mind, and by outbursts of the emotions. But the higher nature controls the body and the mind and the emotions. I can say to my body, "Lie down there on that cement floor and go to sleep," and it obeys. I can say to my mind, "Shut out everything else and concentrate on this job before you," and it's obedient. I can say to my emotions, "Be still, even in the face of this terrible situation," and they are still. It's a different way of living. The philosopher Thoreau wrote: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps he hears a different drummer. And now you are following a different drummer--the higher nature instead of the lower. - Peace Pilgrim

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:54:04 GMT

8-16-6
SNAKES ON A PLANE!

My favorite fortunes that I've gotten from cookies:

Reevaluate your plans for long term success (Panda Express)
Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one
You may lack ambition, but not the ability to succeed

-Meg

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:48:57 GMT

7-29-6
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul To Squeeze
Eddie Brickell and the New Bohemians - What I Am

If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

I made the most comfortable pair of shoes ever. Yes, made. Out of a $1 pair of flip flops, memory foam inserts, duct tape, terry cloth, glue, and a $0.99 floor mat. I think I need a real hobby, perhaps a time consuming job, or perhpas to spend all my free time figuring out what to do when I graduate. But fuck that.

What else is going on in the world? America is a bunch of fuckheads, the police are out to get you, it went from 100 degrees to raining here in ERC, and I really don't want to go to the Zoo tomorrow.

Life is great man. Peace out.

-Meg

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:24:45 GMT

7-19-6
Geto Boys - Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta

This is hot.

-Meg

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:30:44 GMT

6-26-6
Boheans - Closer To Free

Happy summer.

At 2am this morning I got home from the most amazing road trip ever. Last monday we left at 330pm and drove straight to Cave Junction, Oregon. We arrived at 5am.

Tuesday we went to the Oregon Caves and drove ATV's on the gravel roads. Wednesday we left bright and early to eat lunch in Portland and make it to Seattle! We went up the Space Needle (and drank coffee 528 feet up in the air) and toured. Thursday we went to the Original Starbucks (mission accomplished) and yes the coffee was best there. We walked around Pike's market, toured the largest public library in the world, visited the Experience Music project and other random shit. Friday we ditched Canada for a tour of the University of Washington where my buddy Heather wants to do grad school and then went to the MOST BEAUTIFUL place in the world, Snoqualome Falls (beats me how to spell it) and went to the base of a waterfall. We drove to Tacoma for a casino, but duh I'm too young so we dicked around the coast there for a while and had a good time.

Sadly Saturday we had to head back, stopping at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma and eventually making it back to Cave Junction. And at 630am Sunday morning we began the drive home, detouring in Weed (FUCK YEA), the Australian Hat Shop, Gorman, the Flying J, and San Francisco. Arriving at 2am, mission accomplihsed.

The rest of summer will be awesome too.

Drinking Tullys, Seattle's Best, Space Needle Coffee, and some asian shop, I must say Pike's Market Starbucks was by far superior.

Rock on. FREEDOM!