Super - or (you'll) forget it

I don't know what it is
That makes me feel like this
I don't know who you are
But you must be some kind of superstar
'Cause you got all eyes on you no matter where you are
(I'm feeling some connection to the things you do...

Got that feeling I'll see you later.)


If it's not supernatural, if it's not super-stellar, I have no time for it. Because it's either super or a waste of time (i.e. a question of time - before it's dead, gone&forgotten, therefore of little philosophical relevance*).


*like gold; but on the Philosopher's Stone - more soon.

Weaving a webb...

Justin Webb, today on Today: "...but it's absurd - you're introducing the supernatural here, which doesn't exist." (No intervention here from the guys he's talking to; no thunderbolt).

Well, the Radio 4 journo must have have abolished God while we were listening away. It's taken humankind a dozen or so millennia, but - at long last - we've done it.

Congratulations, Mr Webb!

Magnum opus

I've found it. 

(And it's the same Rock I have discovered down a different path; or what we sometimes think of as a different path).

Oh Sandy!

What's happening in the States could be a natural phenomenon, a warning of another four years of Obama's misguided presidency combined with -which is much worse - his poisonous anti-Austrian propaganda that undermines the American spirit and can help turn the American Dream into an American nightmare; or it can simply be one of a number of possible sequels to this beautiful song.

(In my life I've seen the perfect storm of Woman - provoked, admittedly, by something more that a butterfly's flapping its wings in the Amazon - and let me tell you: Sandy behaves like a gentlewoman)

And I saw

And I saw that it all could have been good.




(and I don't mean Lower Silesia, or - not only; I mean the project.) 

50!*

I've just looked at the count on the left and realised that I've done it! 50 posts! Well done, mate!*

(Well, I guess this is quite like the EU propaganda...)

*I've made a decision to include that post, and the next one.

Too late

It was after a philosophical meeting in Warsaw (I think after a talk and some short discussion run by prof. Gryganiec - whom I won't let be) that it struck me how subtle I am. As you know...

no - sorry, I can't do serious blogging now - I've wasted my energy in trivial parts of the Internet

At the last count, OK?

(I don't know whether I should count the previous post. Can I make the decision later?)

Aim

I've decided to reach the threshold of 50 posts this month - tonight* before 3 am. (the blog's official clock shows the EU, or whatever, time; it's 2.50 in a safer place)


*that is this morning

Friday Night Project: astray

My Friday Night Project: gone astray all over the Internet.

by Glenn McCoy

The Hamlet Project*€

The Hamlet project: went ... well, badly?

*sorry, I forget now... well, it is late.

€ I remember now: retrieved from my dead Facebook thing

Her project: not going well

I've been here two weeks and all I've been asked for is to pick up one and a half crumbs from the surgically clean kitchen floor and all I've been ask about is the outstanding rent* (again and again). I haven't been asked for advice on how to vote, explanation why central planning is bad or why the Austrians are good; nor have I been asked about duali.. sorry: Dualism, the proofs for the immortality of the human soul or why democracy can't work.

The petite, cute (and über-obsessed with cleanliness) project called P.** is not going well so far (but I keep my fingers crossed; and we're going to have a really serious conversation about the EU this weekend).

*what a waste of life! (or time...)
**obviously I won't give the full name; let me only suggest that the second letter is "a".



photo by Frances McLaughlin-Gill

Sovereignity? This is how you do* it

What a neat and economical lesson in how you tackle the very difficult, intricate, delicate -  and bloody frustrating - issues concerning the EU poking its long, ugly and bossy nose into anything it gets a sniff of, i.e. on an essential issue that has been long-forgotten on the continent: SOVEREIGNITY. Keep at it, Mr Cameron!

And if the UK decides to leave the 'greatest organisation in the history of the Universe that has brought peace, prosperity, the common currency and harmonious cooperation - especially fiscal - to the whole of Milky Way'** - well, good riddance! (I mean - the Brits saying this; but then they would, wouldn't they***?




*actually: this is how you say it; the Tories have been saying great things on this subject for a while now... well, since a certain speech at Brugge by a certain lady (with a handbag)
**as I'm sure one of the treaties puts it; and if not that, then definitely one of the booklets or leaflets distributed by their propaganda bureaux paid for by 'EU citizens', 60% of whom are - and bloody rightly so! - beginning to go sceptical about the whole bloody idea#.
***and they'd be bloody right!!

PS You know what? I thought my EU-realism has reached its full potential back in Poland; by Jove! how wrong was I! Well, I've just realised - and got scared - that EU-wise, I feel so good & safe## here, across the Channel, that I nearly wish the bloody organisation to go on...



#just in case you wanted to look at the figures straight from the horse's mouth (not that I trust the horse, or the rider - or however the metaphor€ could be dragged, by the tail###, on...
## & which is bloody wrong!
### excuse me, it's late - and, after all, I'm part of the EU, so I can publish rubbish, can't I?####
#### or never mind...

€ actually,  it's not a metaphor, is it? It must be one of those quirky, insular British idioms.

Death/Spice/Life

Death is the spice of life*.

*recycled; or given new life, one might say. (Well, there may be life after Facebook then...)


PS [Wikipedia] The corpse is that of the criminal Aris Kindt (alias of Adriaan Adriaanszoon), who was convicted for armed robbery and sentenced to death by hanging. He was strangled earlier on the same day of the scene.^[3] The face of the corpse is partially shaded,^[1] a suggestion of umbra mortis (shadow of death), a technique that Rembrandt was to use frequently.

The French art historian Jean-Marie Clarke points out that the navel of the corpse has the shape of a capital R and connects this observation to the fact that Rembrandt worked intensively on his signatures...

Illustration: The Spice Lesson (or something like that) of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632)  by Rembrandt 

The labelling project: failed

The labelling project: failed

If millions of years of 'evolution', decades of eating, their (or ours - or, actually, let's make it a bit more general: human) moms and grandmoms, long half-wasted years of compulsory state education, mirrors and their (our/ humankind's) own bodies haven't been able to give them (or us/ humankind) enough food for thought, how on earth can anyone believe that one or another kind of labelling will?

           

(Or are we talking about the democratic public and democratic politicians who really have successfully dealt with all the other thousands and thousands of issues they got involved in and now have not much else to focus on? Ah, it's all right then).

Oh Mercy (The Disease of Conceit)

... your delusions are granted and evil eye

... the idea that you're too good to die

If I were to give a single piece of advice to a young man, I just wouldn't know what to say, so I'd say Oh, Mercy! (& beware of the Disease of Conceit.)



PS Daniel Lanois

Public enemy

Recycling long-debunked green clichés

Misguided, misleading & venomous - a harmful species.

A tale of two committees

The democratic project: failed (a good while ago)

Today in the local Parliament two committees were sitting at the same time: one dealt with the case of a dead sexual predator; the other with the future of nuclear energy in this country.

Guess which issue is going to attract bigger interest from voters and get more coverage in the media? But then, you cannot expect the average voter to know that it's been obvious for quite a while now that the human project doesn't have any future and that nuclear power has always had a bright future (as the average voter has been exposed to very high&brain damaging levels of Greenpeace).



Illustration: Burial of Phocion (1648*) by Nicolas Poussin, oil on canvas, 114 cm  x 175 cm,  National Museum Wales in Cardiff
*the painting, not the burial

Nothing thinking

(Recycling, ctd.)

A boy's greeting

(My journey hadn't been planned meticulously, but I didn't mind. It was a heavenly late-summer afternoon and the final stage was a mere 8-mile walk across the part of Lower Silesia that I love to bits. I felt secure and light - the summer completely distracted me from most of my sins, so my only burden was a small trustworthy suitcase* and the prospect of death; the former I could handle myself, physically; and with the latter, I dare say, I'd been dealing with considerable success, philosophically. Thus, I joyfully got off the train and set out with a spring in my soul, making up a psalm as I went along - how could I not on such a glorious Lord-given day?)



Then a boy on a bicycle emerged out of the curve in the road and said 'Good afternoon' as he went past me. I replied - and suddenly understood that his sincere and unprompted* greeting prompted, implied and, if you cared to take a closer look, encompassed the whole human moral code - starting with the very premises, going through all the commandments and finishing with most intricate nuances.

(Just after the boy, two fully-fledged teenage girls appeared on the horizon. And as always with more shapely specimen of the opposite sex, there was some confusion in my mind: were they there to reward my faith or to test it? Their bodies were approaching at an exciting  youthful pace and I was trying hard not to think of them as mere sexual objects, at which I nearly succeeded when their faces became discernible***, and fully - with the help of the boy's 'Good afternoon' - when they were some 10 steps behind me.)

*Tripp's the brand; I think it's Debenham's in-house luggage label; recommended.
**but what do I know about where the Spirit blows?
***not that they were ugly, quite the contrary; but then I saw them as they really were: fully-fledged persons.


Illustration: Tobias and the Angel (1663) by Claude Lorraine
Oil on canvas, 116 x 153.5 cm

Thrilled?

The ultimate stage in the long process of the understanding of an idea is the release of the thrill inherent in it.

 (In other words: experiencing the idea)




PS I didn't plan to finish with this, but the choice of the illustration prompted me: good ideas thrill - and are supposed to thrill - because there is a person behind them; in a similar way evil ideas horrify (or thrill - depending on where you are in life, including clinically) because there is a person behind them.

(Go back &) Squeeze them dry

Oh, Lord -

let us - somehow - lay our hands back

on those missed moments, unused hours,

misused days, quarter-used weeks,
overlooked months, dormant years
(and on the ramblers we met, half-asleep)  -

so that we may squeeze them dry 

and finally wipe off
the Attorney's hellish smirk -
for your greater glory
and our calm nights.

You have faith

How much do you understand?  

So you have faith.


("I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - C.G.Jung)

Recycling

(I've revisited my old Facebook* account - to reconnect with a few old friends who exist only there, it would seem - and noticed, in between minor philosophical points, some stuff that lay dormant there and that possibly qualified for recycling; thus, being a - kind of - green blogger, I've decided to re-emit some of it into the face'o/blogosphere.)


*Speaking of the f-word: I won't be delaying for much longer a (retrospective) announcment of the death of Facebook; then its revival.

Stay clean (&clear!)

(O! how I'd wipe off that smile with my mess!)

Just one small tip for young men*: petite, pretty, petty, young Polish** women über-obsessed with über-order and über-cleanliness (& über-charging for rented rooms) - avoid at all costs!***

PS I might somehow forgive a menopausal or elderly woman, but a young one? Not only is it unforgivable, but also painful to see (and v. painful to experience on your own skin - feels like a caress with a toilet brush).



*not that I am a young man; I just imagine my typical reader to be a young man, turning occasionally into a young woman, who - occasionally - turns up at... oh, never mind.
**I suspect you might find a few German women fitting the bill, as this scary phenomenon is probably über-national (by the way: where's the EU, when it could be of some use?? Ah, right - cleaning up the self-made mess in Greece...)
*** besides which, I can't über-recommend: read Psalms!

picture: scrapetv.com

Making Up

Kiss and make up? 

PS "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry*... "  (If a young man asked me what to do, I'd sing - among dancing Jewish women - to the sound of cymbals: Read psalms! Read psalms! Read psalms!)

*it's really there, check it. Unbelievable.

Photo: confirmation of a covenant over Beckenham, Kent

The power of man (Oh, Lord!)

In the engine of the coach that took me from central Warsaw to Modlin Airoprt,
in the baby Boeing that flew me to Brussels,
in the German nuclear power plant - foolishly scheduled for closure in a few years time - that I flew over,
in the Pont d'Aquitane that I (illegally) walked over,

in the cellars of Margaux,
in the chimneys of  Battersea Power Plant (in Pigs too),
in the Cardiff Bay Barrage
and in Skype, through which kept in touch with my daughter - I saw the power of man.
Lord, you are amazing!

Bottom photo

These Isles Will Be Saved

And it's not the Anglican Church that gave me this idea, quite the contrary.

"These isles will be saved", 

thought the boy. It was just a thought, but sudden and heart-felt.

(Further details sooner or later. And don't think that I wouldn't like to be more conscientious, blog-wise*. I would.)




(*Actually, come to think of it, I'd like to be more conscientious generally).

Illustration:

Relationship, Drug and Alcohol*

Politicians compelling teachers to educate kids about relationships? It's gonna fail... (well, it's already failed.)

In the local Parliament, even as we speak: the first reading of the Relationship, Drug and Alcohol Education Bill, a Private Member's Bill introduced under the Ten Minute Rule;

First of all, congratulations on the bill's title. If the right kind of person spots it, it has a potential of fuelling British comedy for a couple of weeks, if not months.

Secondly, the bill neatly and timely - from my blog's point of view - reminds us that the Human Project has failed.


*shouldn't it run more true to life, though: Alcohol, Drugs & Relationship?


PS "Support was growing today for the attempt by Hull North MP Diana Johnson to make lessons about drugs, alcohol and relationships compulsory in classrooms. 

The Relationship, Drug and Alcohol Education (Curriculum) Bill requires the Secretary of State for Education to include relationships, drug and alcohol education in the National Curriculum. 

The Bill will be introduced by the Hull North MP Diana Johnson in the House of Commons tomorrow (Wednesday 17 October) straight after Prime Minister’s Questions, under the Ten Minute Rule Bill procedure. 

The Bill is backed by charities and campaigns with expertise of working in the fields of drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, sexual health and child welfare issues. 

These now include The Amy Winehouse Foundation, Brook, the Family Planning Association, Adfam, the Angelus Foundation, The End Violence Against Women Coalition, Mentor, Alcohol Concern and Turning Point.

In a statement backing the Bill, the Amy Winehouse Foundation said today: "At the Amy Winehouse Foundation we passionately believe that all children deserve the opportunity to learn about the potential dangers of drugs and alcohol. With the ever changing landscape of substance misuse in the UK we feel it is imperative that .... [...]"

Certain charming un-réalisabilitée

... enjoying the sunshine in Rue Bonnaffe...

Coming back to Paris (or Bordeaux, if you will): I don't think there's any chance of a serious liaison between me and French women: I just don't get them.

PS But the poignant unréalisabilite* has, like anything to do with French women, some charm and mystery about it.

...charming, but the door's gonna shut in a moment...

*Easy. I'm still working on the endings, because I want to get them.

MASTERMIND

Re: your divine aspects

One of the divine prerogatives that you've been given is the power of your Mind. Even if the world is not yours yet, it definitely is your Mind's: it acts as if it were the Master of the Universe*.

It imperially assumes that all is its to ask, even if not all is its to find an answer to. It boldly comes up with all conceivable and inconceivable questions and fearlessly (sometimes recklessly) juggles (or at times fools around) with all conceivable and inconceivable answers. It is restless and grasping: it wants to stake the standard of understanding onto all it sees, imagines and believes.

And as far as those few boggling questions are concerned that keep you sleepless at night, your Mind hopes to get one day a royally-sealed confirmation of its tentative answers; a confirmation and clarification that will provide a kind of enlightenment that it may spend an eternity blissfully working it out - because it will come from its own Overlord, the Master of your Mastermind.



* which, by proxy, it is.

In defens

Should old wisdom be forgot and never thought upon? (Viable) sates don't come into being through democratic procedures!

One of the essential tests of whether a place can be justifiably called 'a state' is its capability to wage war (some would add: and to win it; but that's arguable). One might then say to those Scots who want independence and claim that Scotland can make a viable state: defend your point - and prove it.


PS Which - due to a few aspects of my psycho-religio-philosophical make-up - I won't say; but it reminds me to come back to an extremely damning aspect of Polish statehood.

The Human Project: failed

Do you really want another painful proof of the Human Project's failure?


PS I don't want to go into the sad details (such as Jimmy Savile) - whether local cultural, political, philosophical, local or global - but it is clear now, isn't it?, that the idea that we can make it on our own not only has failed, but has failed repeatedly and in all conceivable ways. (Sadly, part of that failure is our - to take a collective perspective - inability to acknowledge it and it's quite likely that someone is thinking of checking out another way even as we speak)

I have

I have understood.

(No, it's not this; though all interconnects, not in an obvious way, but - obviously)

Top illustation; (which is, some would argue, the top activity as well; but not me - I have understood)

Hi, Estonia!

Google - what an unfathomable demi-god: 27 visits from Estonia on one day. What on earth is the query if my blog is the answer?


PS Now, this may be a pure coincidence, but thinking of Estonia, three issues spring to mind, don't they?  Dualism, Taxation & (The fallacy of) Democracy.

   

And looking at Estonia's flag, three issues springs to mind: Taxation, Taxation, Taxation.

( )

(... or you know what? Forget it.)

I bet theirs is the only man-made music that can be seen from the moon 

I considered the title of this 1965 masterpiece for a brief moment, before I remembered that I'd fallen out with humankind.

PS I've just decided to go to Liverpool sooner rather than later, I owe it to myself -
those guys shaped such big swathes of my soul that, who knows, even my intellect may have been affected. So I'll be walking in Woolton with my feet ten feet off the ground*....


*a bit more specific when in Memphis

The fairer side of the argument

...the sage looked at her too....

Cracow was now behind us and the train slid into the countryside. I surveyed the area and my travel companions.

For a dangerous moment I got overwhelmed - the abundance of new life and fresh blood around me seemed more than my good old life could handle. But the sage in me persevered. First he found comfort in the beauty (not his, to avoid any misunderstanding), then strength in the intellect (his now - a valuable gift). "Good", I thought*, "they are good signs. They confirm the point, partly."

Most of the vegetation outside the train window hadn't been there the first time I travelled this route, some 40 years ago. Indeed, a lot of this amazing and vibrant stuff appeared on the universal scene very recently, in some cases in the last few weeks or even days.

The mysterious deer in the middle of a corn field that I caught a brief glimpse of must have been ushered into existence just a year or two ago.

Even the cute girl opposite - and the sage and me** saw  no way this universe, on its own, could have produced something like that - made her entry when I was more or less mid-way through my life so far.

I looked at her intently. There was then, it struck me, just one last*** thing left to complete the argument and drive my point home: for me**** to die.

"Which", I decided on the spur of the moment, "as a consistent philosopher, I will!". I glanced at the girl again, poignantly. The sage***** glanced at her too - hopefully.******







*from now on to avoid stylistical complications I'll merge the sage with myself; which I think is what happened there anyway.

**I'll separate the sage and myself for a moment, for stylistical reasons: I want to increase the gravitas of the profound philosophical conclusion that follows immediately (you know - two opinions rather than just one).

***well, the last but one.

****I don't know about the sage; he acts as if he were already immortal, which, I guess, he isn't - yet; but I'm sure he's on to something...

***** sorry - I've decided to let him loose just once more, the last time (in this installment, that is. I promise).

****** (you'll probably unsubscribe now, but I just thought that his involvement here could definitely help get the point across to you... and who knows,  maybe even to her...) my feeling is the sage thought cockily he would meet her again one day and ... say, have a chat with her about Dualism, or something. On the other hand, if they do meet again, it may be just much (oh, how much!) too late for any discussion about Dualism...

PS I pretended to be taking a snap of the view outside the window, but in fact I was after the girl. I thought she was absorbed in the landscape of Lesser Poland, but when I took her sunglasses off and... sorry, sorry - I must have dozed off in that cosy compartment... anyway, where was I?...  oh yes -but later, when I zoomed in on her eyes, I noticed they were directed at... me. And, who knows, she may have been thinking "dualism... sorry: Dualism has such a powerful explanatory potential..." or, a tiny bit more likely, "How long will this elderly guy - who thinks he's being very clever pretending to be taking pictures of the boring landscape while it's obvious he's harassing me [yes, I admit things got a bit ex manu: in my mobile's archive it does look like a proper photo shoot] - be around?")




d

I hate it

Now I satisfy also this condition: I hate this world.

(It seems the world hates me too. And you know what? We are both right).

(Famous) Rauzan-Ségla

If this isn't the famous Rauzan-Se... all right, all right - this is the famous Rauzan-Ségla.

PS "And what's the château over there?", I pointed in the direction of an impressive building that I should have recognised right away, situated across a patch of a vineyard and a road. The helpful and attractive young woman, whom I found in one of the outbuildings and with whom I chatted for a moment about the castle she owed her loyalty to, evidently wanted to turn me on. "Palmer", she said.

I had a map or two with me, but decided - in the spirit of true adventure - not to use them and run* into the châteaux randomly, letting them take me by surprise. Apart from that, to be completely honest, owing to the excess of emotions it slipped my mind whether Palmer was in the local parish or in Saint-Julien or even Pauillac, which hopefully excuses my reaction a little.

"The famous Palmer?", I foolishly set myself up as if I'd just drunk a bottle of some cheap heady Beaujolais Nouveau on my own (as I used to in the good old days):  is there anything not famous in Margaux and a whole bunch of Palmers strewn across Médoc?

"No. This is the famous Rauzan-Ségla", she said in the coolest and sexiest French way, and half-smiled. 

Embarassed and confused, I had no idea what to focus on: my faux pas or her stylish half-smile, so I simply laughed awkwardly. "Of coeaursé", I wrapped up my blunder with the best French accent I could muster, and asked for the draw bridge of her château to be lowered as I trotted off towards the...well...famous British stronghold.

*not stumble, unfortunately; I continue to dry up (otherwise I'd still be blissfully knocking about the parish, reinforced by local heavenly stuff, singing psalms to the Lord and doing the most insightful meditation on the Miracle at Kana in the history of wine-drinking).

The Wit and the Wisdom*

(*if it's not one and the same thing)

In a large under-heated and half-empty Anglican vicarage I browse through The Wit of the Church [compiled by M. Bateman and S. Stenning, Leslie Ferwin Publishers Ltd, 15 Hay's Mews, Berkeley Sq, London W1, Second Impression 1967]:

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Heenan, in court to defend a member of his flock, was asked by counsel: 
"You are probably the most intelligent man in England?"
"Yes. I suppose you could say that."

A friend pulled his leg afterwards, but Cardinal Heenan said to him:
"I didn't want to appear vain, but I had to remember I was on oath."

...

Cardinal Heenan attended the funeral of Pope Pius, and found himself looking around the assembled ranks of cardinals from whom the new Pope would be chosen, and later commented:
"When my eyes rested on a very fat old gentleman called Cardinal Roncalli they didn't delay long. But in  due course he became Pope John. And when, soon after, I was received into private audience, I was very glad he had not known what was passing through my mind at the funeral of Pope Pius."

...

Bishop Hensley Henson on his fellow men: 
"Clergy are like manure. Spread thinly over the land they are very good, but put them in a heap and - pooh."

...

Cardinal Vaughan once turned to Dr Adler, the Chief Rabbi, at a dinner and mischievously asked:
"Now, Dr Adler, when may I have the pleasure of helping you to some ham?"
"At Your Eminence's wedding."

...

Canon Bryan Green tells the story of the dying man who, asked by the priest 'Do you renounce the Devil and all his ways?', replied:
"I'm in no sort of position, just at the moment, to be making any sort of enemies anywhere."

...

The Reverend Dewi Morgan tells the story of the Cardiff parson who was offered a living in London, and after much thought and prayer decided to accept. His children greeted this news with some misgiving, and the night before they left, the youngest daughter finished her prayers with:
"And so goodbye, God - we're moving to London tomorrow..."

[...which yours truly may do too, the day after tomorrow].

If this isn't ...

Because, it seems, life's too simple as it is. (If this isn't stupid*, I don't know what is).

*Or this; or this; or this; or... oh, never mind; it seems endless & hopeless... (the aristocracy are likely to understand).

The rule of the best (learners)

John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute KT, KSG, KGCHS (12 September 1847 – 9 October 1900), the landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian, scholar, philanthropist, architectural patron and Hereditary Keeper of Rothesay Castle*  - or, to be precise, his statue in Cathays Park in Cardiff - reminds me that I was to come back to the subject of aristocracy:

The advantage of aristocracy is that they take less explaining to**.

*(Jimmy) Wales & co

 **Got it?

One (Here is my bet)

That free will makes intellectual and emotional sense is clear to most of us. Some are still not convinced, but maybe it must be this way and let's leave for another occasion a survey of the arguments supporting a view that we are necessarily free from time to time.

Today, let me focus on one aspect of the issue and put the following to you:

To be a person, it is necessary for you to be free in your choice of action, thought or emotion sometimes. Thanks to philosophy, psychology, science and your own insight into your mind's workings, you know that in many situations you are not free. Whether it's nature, nurture or still other aspects of your existence and its context, you often seem to have no choice or be irresistibly directed in what you do, think or feel.

To satisfy the person condition, however, there must be at least one instance when you act, think or feel freely. And what's more, if the common human intuition is right and what the world's major teachers, sages and religions suggest is true, a continuation of your life and your eternal happiness in the World to Come depend, partly of course, on your free moral or interpersonal decisions.

So here is my bet: because it may be impossible to establish with certainty which of your acts are free and because there must be at least one act in your life that is free, treat each of your acts as if it were the act on which the whole of your eternal life and happiness depend. Or risk losing them.

Bordeaux (ctd)

If this isn't Pont de pierre at dawn, I don't know what is.

A (more or less) beautiful story...

What a lovely story: I hear that a quite mature English teacher eloped to France with a 15-year-old girl. And to Bordeaux of all places, just a week or so after I left it! I guess because it must be legal there to drink wine before you turn eighteen; coincidentally, the age of consent in France is 15, but no - that must be a pure dirty coincidence...

The story also means that there may still be hope... Especially that as far as I'm concerned she wouldn't have to be 10-something, she could be, say, 20-something; and I wouldn't insist on running away to France, just going to a café; and not necessarily to have legal sex there... sorry: drink wine, but to argue about dualism (sorry: Dualism)




PS Yes, I have heard that an abandoned wife and some distressed parents are also involved, but I just can't help it: any story that features an elderly man and an under-age girl getting closer than a meter within one another has some inherent beauty for me.

(from break.com)

It's consistent, my dear Watson

So what's your offer, young lady?

Yes, I do realise that philosophically I've reached a point where I'd have to say 'No' to an offer of an eternal continuation of this life if such an offer were ever made to me.

And, obviously, I would.




Illustration by Rado Javor via...

If this isn't France...

If this isn't France, then I don't know what is.

Aut.... aut....

Summing up the ex post (that came in installments): the inescapable conclusion is that either you embrace God or you go for nothing.



(And if you go for nothing, you'll end up going for anything faster than you'd to say a Hail Mary.

This is because you're wired - as G.K. Chesterton observed and probably you have by now too - in such a way that you must believe in something.

So if you've chosen nothing rather than the Lord, you're very likely to be bowing, even as we speak, before genes, 'Evolution', some kind of Martians, 'eternal' hard stuff /matter,, the Jedi, a naked 15-year-old, yourself or whatever.

If so, bless you.)

Misguided, misguiding & very expensive (the UN whatever committees)

(and that's just by the way)

I hear that a UN committee or some-such predicts extremely serious problems world-wide because not enough children are being born.

Are they not, by any chance, the same bunch who not so long ago - under the auspices of the same organisation and for the same money (ours) - predicted extremely serious problems world-wide because, according to those wise-asses, too many children were being born?

And probably they are even the same 'scientific' busybodies that warned us against eating two eggs per day. You know what? I swear I'd gladly throw a few at those geniuses if those they were somewhere at hand (eggs always are at my place).

Miracle sicence

Speaking of science: I believe in miracle science, the science that sees miracles and gasps at them, helping the students to bend their knees.

Do you believe in yourself?

Where did you come from baby?

Speaking of miracles: if you don't see them, if you don't believe in them, how are you going to see and believe in

yourself?

PS And I don't mean it in a romantic or erotic way (unless you insist). I mean it in a most fundamental, philosophical way: your mind-body problem miracle, your intellect* miracle, your imagination miracle, your feeling heart miracle, your life miracle, your ribonucleic acids miracle and last but foremost: your existence miracle.

*or is it your intellect problem miracle?

Out of matter alone?

Such a sunset out of matter alone?

(I've grown bold enough to post sunset pics; but I'm still too timid to write about them; on the other hand, I've just realised this is a post-sunset photo, so I could add a few lines... but maybe some other time - it's past midnight now)

Fabula ex nota

This post is getting ex manu now. If I carry on, I'll end up with a treatise instead of a neat, effective blog post.  Really, I must find the original note. It was fast and aerodynamic - it drove the point home in a couple of straightforward lanes.

And I'm positive the conclusion started: Deus...

Miraculum ex nihilo?

However, today we know that matter isn't merely a pile of simple blocks that you can just about imagine to be easily arranged one way or another*  - today we know that matter itself is of miraculous nature, so we must step back and rephrase: which is more rationalis: miraculum ex nihilo? Or Deus aeternus et miraculum ex Deo?


 *which would still be a miracle...

Deus ex materia?

You may have realised that I overlooked something: nature itself is miraculous, so we must step back and rephrase: Deus ex materia*?



*which - as far as I can remember - was how the original thought went, but I lost it somewhere in my notebook (which is still better than losing a whole notebook, which has happened to me three times) and now instead of retracing the line of thought I tried to retrace the line of words, and got it wrong.

Deus aut natura

And then another one, of crucial epistemological significance: which is more rational: to believe that supernatural things happen through nature or through something/Someone supernatural?