The Person I Saw From Afar
I have seen a person from afar. Or rather didn’t ‘see’, as it often is these days.
All these great leaders of nations you see on TV – you will never see her be.
She is in the realm of magic, but since magic went out of fashion, she exists in no realm.
I have seen a person from afar. Or was she near? It’s hard to tell these days.
All the songs that sing of beautiful things, they didn’t sing of her.
Once there were ten millionaires – inexpensively, she gave something to expensive for money to buy.
I have seen a person from afar – when people spoke of technology, science and new things – their minds were to small to gasp her into view.
A person who can’t be seen.
A person who can’t be heard.
Would you believe me when I told you I once saw a person from afar?
The Rich and the Poor
1. All people have needs, and they are quite consistent across different people. We need about 2000 calories of food, some clothes, shelter and water. We have a spectrum of medical needs.
2. I knew a person who would immensely despise anyone that would have an unfulfilled need and ask for help. She would also despise people who would have, or seem to have, little money. She would have and extensive mental list of jobs which, according to her, made a person unworthy of respect. Examples of it were being a cleaning lady, elementary school teacher, or being a representative for a company or political group. She found certain jobs – cleaning, for example, so despicable, that not only would she never take such a job, but would actually prefer to live in a filthy place and eat off dirty dishes when she couldn’t make other people do it for her. It seems she felt like doing something like that would damage her somehow.
3. When you think of it, if you acquire anything you want or need in a way that is in accordance with your own morals, everything else really shouldn’t matter.
4. The person i wrote about came to value only money. She found it worthwhile to hang out with those who had enough, and avoided anyone who she didn’t consider ‘rich’ enough.
5. Greed for money seems to be based on the belief that – if you acquire something indirectly, you are therefore a more valuable person.
6. Money has become a culturally accepted way to clean your hands of blood. Compare the following scenarios:
a) A person walks down the road, shoots a stranger, takes his money, and walks off.
b) A person, knowing the consequences of smoking, works in a cigarette factory.
Another person buys the cigarettes they make. He and his daughter die of smoke-related illness.
Except for some numbers being calculated, the scenario is the same.
7. People who are greedy for money believe that when they will acquire enough money, it will make them faultless and divine – after all, they will not have those desperate, human, carnal needs anymore.
But humans are of the same human nature from life to death.
The Return of the Living Dead
1. She had a husband, but now he had passed away. I was her guest.
“This rice is expensive” i said.
“Yes, but it is also tastier than the other kind” she replied.
2. “I think the gift you got me is way too expensive, why did you get it, you really shoudn’t have.” i heard him say in a concerned voice to me. I did not find words to tell him off proprely. What a jerk. I felt embarassed.
3. She told me she would sure be dead in five years. I asked her about it, and she did not have any medical or even any reasons for the claim. We went on to adjust her bread maker and eat dinner.
In a few days i got on a plane and left. I didn’t hear from her since.
4. I have this lingering thought that if she had cooked the expensive rice for her husband, she would still be alive today. I ate her rice with gratitude, but was it already cold?
5. I don’t want to make the same mistake. My own relationship may end tomorrow, but today is real. I may not get the chance of doing what i want to again. If it is about something silly i want to bring you because i want you to have it, something as trivial as a number next to a dollar sign will not prevent me. So fuck off.
Sheer Lazyness
Science
The most noble work is that that you will never do again.
Art
The most noble work is that that is never finished. Even after it is finished, people who see it should add to it by their own contemplation and interpretation.
–
I think there is too much art in science today.
Questions, Answers, Improvement
I.
Some books contain questions, some contain answers. Reading one with answers to a person without a question will leave him disappointed. Reading one with questions to a person full of them will make no change.
They will be asking themselves “When does the author shut up already”?
The one is not better then the other. We make use of different kinds at different times in our lives.
Kinda like kids – suddenly a child is all questions; or sometimes they just keep telling and showing you stuff you don’t really care about. They intuitively know how growth, learning and improvement is done. Adults should learn from them.
To often, people push the question kind of book on others, telling them it is art or faith.
To often, people push the answer kind of book on others, telling them it is science.
But they are really not apart from each other: human experience is both art and science – first, it is great to come across a great question; then it is great to come across a great answer. Both are equally needed for us to improve.
II.
If you look at the design of most textbooks, you will see how they try to force this process (which is not bad in itself, since it makes people learn fast). They include both the question, and the answer. If the problem is not specifically posted, the titles are usually actually questions. For example, they will say: Principles of Biochemistry; meaning “What is it, that Biochemistry is based on? What concepts will i find most often in any problem in the field?”.
The many people having problems focusing on their schoolwork (or people who tend to worship “experts” too much) should try this if they don’t do this already – make the title into the question. It may often make the answer more intuitive and easier to learn.
Studying is Good, Studying Sucks
I.
“Boredom is excess attention with insufficient intention.”
(McLeod, 2001)
Most of today’s education is indoctrination: we need to promote languange, we need to promote literacy, we need to promote…
They’re good, mkay.
What remains unsaid is that the world’s knowledge is a reply to someone else’s problem. Mostly, we don’t even know what it was that the person was asking. If we do, we usually don’t really have that problem.
With this said, we learn about those people (since they made “important” contributions): their life, hobbies, year born and died; a rich plethora of irrelavant facts to help us join into the worship of someone else’s idol.
“My child just can’t concentrate on his studies.”
random ADHD mum
His concentration is alive and well. The problem lies in yours. Nevermind, that pill has less abuse potential than cocaine and amphetamine. As long as he gets into that School, he will be fine (i.e. in debt; enslaved). His affliction is real (i.e. like diabetes) after all.
So he can learn about important things.
“Important
1. Strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant: an important message that must get through; close friends who are important to me.”
TheFreeDictionary
How is what doesn’t affect me important to me?
This is ridiculous. When do we stop montillating the Traxoline?
“Better something then nothing”
our culture
Really, a room full of clutter is just as bad as an empty room, lets be honest.
II.
I’m sitting here, staring into space – why wont anybody hire me? But then again, if i won’t hire myself why would anybody else? 14 years of education, and i’m as unemployable as ever. I’m unemployable because i lack knowledge about how to do things. In other words, i’m uneducated.
III.
There are people out on the street fighting the police again. They want jobs and money. But the people they think can give them jobs are getting fired tomorrow themselves. They are all angry. I wonder why?
Interior Design
The way of arranging and aquiring stuff tells of a feeling we would like to re-experience. An opens space feels like freedom, a filled one feels safe. This is because there is nothing worse then experiencing – in terms of emotions – something new. If we do – are we still going back to where we are, or spin into madness?
What you know is what you know you can cope with.
Decoration is simply slavery to our own emotions. As they rule the mind, rationalizations about why we own what we do are becoming an art themselves. There no rational explanation for owning knick-knacks.
Don’t be afraid. Instead of walking around with a duster, you could be walking around with a friend.
Leaders, Supply, Demand
It is unlikely that you should ever become rich without opening at least some resemblance of your own company at one time or or another.
Working for someone will nearly always mean you will do tasks the other person does not think worthy of his time to do, and as such needing to pay the worker less then what the employer gets payed.
No matter how ridiculous and low-education the work of what the person above you does, in our world the supply (employers) are not as many as those who want to be employed by them (demand); thus, the work of the employer will most often be worth more as the work of the worker.
–
When a government takes a lot, or makes a lot of demands on employers (most of rich people are actually in the category) – it is even less likely that the average, low-wage person should start their own company. This is because loosing money when you don’t have it is much worse then loosing the money you don’t mind that much about. Thus at the same risk of succession of a new enterprise, the more that is taken from the rich man, the more likely it is to keep the poor man in his situation.
Less employers means less job options for the employed, making for a vicious cycle of poverty for many people, forcing people to work and not be able to go to another place should the situation become adverse. Thus, high taxes are actually a load put on the worker to carry, regardless on who is taxed on paper.
Sometimes, employers will pay a good amount of money to the worker. This is by no means impossible. But it will often happen, that something will go wrong, and a person in the company will be fired; and you should keep a job you like, but you should also keep this understanding in mind.
Occasionally, with such a thing happening, the employer becomes the enemy. “All they are after is money” is often heard, behind it a person devastated by what just happened.
Personally, i have had a hard time understanding this – would you base your livelihood on a job that is most likely to take money from you, instead of earning you money to buy the groceries? Would you work if you knew you would be payed less than you thought your time deserved? The absolute amount doesn’t matter. Either it feels enough or it doesn’t.
The employers thinking is the same.
Sheep may put blame about their situation on the shepherd. You are men (or women), you have the power to be both the leader of the led.
–
Partly, i blame today’s lame education systems. Not following is punished since childhood. By the amount of children that break the rules, you may see that leadership is actually as natural to a man as is being a follower. In a world of physical labor, you want the person to follow the leader (teacher); and let the most persistent people (who still refuse to follow) lead in the future. This would be in a world that requires a lot of work, and little thinking.
The problem is, in this system, the amount of people not wanting to follow is considered too high to such a degree, that it is often even considered acceptable to ridicule the person into submission, even if it means the person will completely give up any productivity because of it – possibly ending in drugs, or even suicide. The absurdity of this is in that in the real world, there is actually a lack of people who are willing to lead and risk for a better future.
It should be understood that most education systems still in use in the world today, are designed to produce large amounts of workers and a small percentage of leaders. The sad thing is, many people take this as the ultimate reality – some people are smart, others work for them. This is ludicrous.
Just looking at the curriculum and compare it to what sells in the real world. The education you got in elementary or high school is random and often worthless, so do not base the value of yourself as a person on it.
In the real world, everyone may open up their own enterprise. How good you were in school is completely independent of that (apart of the perception of people that was just described).
zacione 