Change is Constant:

 It is easy to miss incremental shifts over time. The universe is dynamic and ever-changing. We are experts in the way the world used to be. FLUX is a persistent state of affairs. This means we must constantly check our own knowledge base as it ages out of currency and decays over time.

Tuesday~ October 25, 2022

But all the fighting in the world will not help us if we do not also hope. What I'm trying to cultivate is not blind optimism but what the philosopher Jonathan Lear calls radical hope. "What makes this hope radical", Lear writes, "is that it is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is." Radical hope is not so much something you have but something you practice; it demands flexibility, openness, and what Lear describes as "imaginative excellence." Radical hope is our best weapon against despair, even when despair seems justifiable; it makes the survival of the end of your world possible. Only radical hope could have imagined people like us into existence. And I believe that it will help us create a better, more loving future.

Junot Diaz, b. 1968

Sunday ~ October 24, 2022

Struggling with others is the definition of war; struggling with oneself is the definition of peace. What is the nature of struggle with oneself? The first [aspect of the struggle}] is to make one's thought, speech, and actions answer the demands of one's own ideal.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, 1882 - 1927

Saturday ~ October 22, 2022

The Winter being over,

In order comes the Spring,

Which doth green herbs discover,

 And cause the birds to sing.

The night also expired,

Then comes the morning bright,

 Which is so much desired,

 By all that love the light.

This may learn

Them that mourn,

 To put their grief to flight: 

The Spring succeedeth Winter,

 And day must follow night.

An Collins, 1640s - 1650s

Thursday ~ October 20, 2011

Believe in yourself when no one else does. No one will believe you can do it until you do, so you have to want your own dreams. Others can want your dreams for you, but you're the only one who can make them happen, and you're the only one who can succeed or fail in reaching them.

Becca Martin, b. 1994

Monday ~ October 17, 2022

 I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island many years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless suffer in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the Boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amid the Tilt_A-Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

 I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly shift from a "thing-oriented" society" to a "person-oriented" society...