Spidey wasn't all that original

“ For of those to whom much is given, much is required."-- Luke 12:48

We don't have a plan...

You can't have plans. You can't have that image of the future which is all you see. If you do that then you lose your reason and every action you take is solely to achieve that image. Often time that image is pure and beautiful but in all likely hood it will lead you astray, and just as often the image before your waking eyes is just as beautiful. This life is not in our hands but rather, in the hands of He who made it. It's not for us to decide what the future will hold. If you always have plans then, more or less, you will always end up being disappointed.

That is what I believe has happened to The White Knight. He has had a vision in his mind of the life he wants to have. Yet I wonder if it's leading him astray. He has been so blinded by it that it caused him not only to loose his usual stubborn reason but also to neglect the reason of others.

Now I'm not saying not to dream or not to hope, just don't let your hopes and dreams cloud your mind until that dream is all that is left for you to see. By all means let you dreams soar, let your hopes never die, but don't be to busy starring at the clouds that you walk into a wall.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Insects and Androids

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert Anson Heinlein

What do you worship?

I know that this is a bit dated and I do not agree with everything in the speech, but moments of it, like this one, are wonderfully insightful.

If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

-from David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College, 2005

The Road Goes Ever On and On

One’s life is a pilgrimage, not a work of art”--John Lukacs

it is how I was written

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God. The world was spoken into being and with it came the story which each of us lives.

I loved the movie Inkheart to a degree that bemused all the people I made watch it with me, many of who failed to see the charm. The most captivating part for me was the character of Dustfinger, and only a little bit because he was played by the fabulous Paul Bettany.

Dustfinger is an unusual protagonist for a fantasy story--he has some magic abilities but these do not elevate him, his is not a hero or a villain just a little bit of a coward, and he is caught up in the action of the story totally against his will and his sole desire is to get home. In short he is incredibly human.

Yet along with this he is perfectly cognizant of being a character in a work of fiction. He fears meeting his author because he does not wish to know how his story ends. He is fully mindful of his character flaws, telling another character he is a coward because it is how he was written. Rising above this is something that he struggles with throughout the movie--when faced with his character flaws he insists that that is not all he is. Later, upon meeting his author and inadvertently having his fate revealed to him is reaction is telling the author "You don't control my fate. I'm not just some character in a book. And you are not my god!"

We too are characters within the story of salvation and, as we are marked by original sin, already have part of our character written out for. Yet, like Dustfinger we have free will and are not just characters--our fate is in our own hands.

I also loved the visual of the half read out characters with words covering them--literally with their story on their face.

Can You See the Real Me?

Which Side are You on?

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain

I don't wanna live in the Modern World

“Philosophy is not the reading of books; philosophy is not the contemplation of nature, philosophy is not the phenomenology of personal experience; philosophy is not its history,” Wilhelmsen wrote in a striking passage. “These are indispensable tools aiding a man to come to know the things that are. But that knowing is precisely knowing and nothing else. We once were given this, not too long ago, in the American Catholic academy. With a few honorable exceptions, we are given it no longer. Philosophy ultimately exists in conversation. It needs to "talked into existence." But it first must be “thought” into existence.”

Frederick Wilhelmsen, Modern Age

What about Everything?

MANALIVE, the Glory of God is Man Fully alive, live--these are phrases we keep throwing around. But what does it mean to be fully alive. Some people believe that this means to live, life on the edge, always moving, chasing the next adrenaline rush. Yet, to be fully alive can mean the exact opposite for to be truly alive means to be contemplating the eternal. this then will influence how you see and react with the world, allow you to view it with wonder and thanks and see it with a fresh perspective. This need not require a degree in philosophy, just an orientation towards truth and a willingness to question and to ponder. Yet this is something sadly lacking in todays world, which is not prone to introspection.

Josef Pieper says In Defense of Philosophy, "People are not commonly disposed, as they are simply not in the appropriate mood, to reflect on the ultimate meaning of reality as such. As a rule, therefore, we should obviously not expect that the philosophical experience and the philosophical quest would be such a common occurrence. ‘How is it with the world as such?’—this is not a question one asks while building a house, while going to court, while taking an exam. We cannot philosophize as long as our interest remains absorbed by the active pursuit of goals, when the ‘lens’ of our soul is focused on a clearly circumscribed sector, on an objective here and now, on things that are presently ‘needed’—and explicitly on anything else. (In intelligent company one can, of course, readily and always discuss any philosophical ‘problem’ tossed to it from the outside like a question on a quiz show. This is not what I am talking about. Here, I understand the philosophical quest as an existential experienced centered in the core of the human mind, a spontaneous, urgent, inescapable stirring of a person’s innermost life.) More likely than not, therefore, a challenge is required that shakes the common and ‘normal’ attitude dominating—by nature and by right—man’s everyday life; a push is needed, a shock, in order to trigger the question that reaches beyond the sphere of mere material needs, the question as to the meaning of the world and of existence: to trigger the philosophical process.”