WW2 Veteran and lifelong member of the Republican party speaking in support of the right for gay and lesbian Americans to marry. Truly moving.
Random Thought
Closing her eyes, she breathes. Hashish smoke in Roman slums, muttered speech, indecipherable Latin flow through her, carried by the breath.
Looking down at her clasped hands, cold and huddled, she exhales.
The Eternal Moment
All the varying scraps of information that have poured into my mind in the past 20-odd hours: Spielberg. Munich. Blood. Monopoly. Chocolate covered ice cream. Procedurally generated, algorithmic math music. Sleep: {murder; jumping dogs; ice sheets; friends}. Waking, startled. Orange & Pomegranate juice. Outside, the sun shines: ‘Starbucks’. Bus stop. Waiting. Rude. Arrival. Over-priced sandwiches, declined. Granville Island curry pastries and coffee (Blue Parrot woman looks Vietnamese; probably isn’t). Mexican place, distracted by paper bag contraption ($2 per bag). Food. Drink. Emily Carr art gallery and book store. Awful artwork on walls: still-life portraits of boring, uninspired celebrities. ‘Reading’ all X-hundred pages of a black-bound book of photographs taken during the very moment at which nuclear detonations occurred, back when such tests were performed above ground. Emily Carr library. Scoffing at the cynicism of Adbusters and not at all appreciating their sensationalistic/fatalistic writing, paired with grotesque imagery, but reading it nonetheless. Voicing said complaints on small slips of paper—borrowed from a very nice woman manning the front desk—wedged between sneaker advertisements and rants against neo-classical economics. Continuing on to the latest issue of IDN magazine to write the tale of a young Turkish woman from Istanbul whose favourite ancestor had helped craft the cannons with which the Turks besieged Constantinople, filing it between news of a Swedish design competition and a page containing gratuitous use of the font Helvetica. Walk over to a coffee shop, returning unused papers and pen to table lady along the way. (By the way, according to their public bathrooms, Emily Carr students have an obsession with cartoonishly-drawn penises…) I wait outside at the coffee shop, seeing ducks while leaving messages on my phone. At the bus stop, I discuss life philosophy while almost lying on a grassy knoll of dog shit. Arrival. Suburban maze. Much sun. Patterns of thought. Arrival. Escapism. Russian economic model, followed by soon-to-be-abandoned Feudal Japan. Era of the country at war. Spinach curry on Indonesian fried rice. Worry over state of health care “debate”. The decline of the Ottoman Empire; the empire of two souls. Motivated to write down day’s events. Particularly tired. Coltrane crumpled on chest. Meditation.
The Timeline of Humanity
(with a focus on Western civilization);
from the dawn of agriculture to the fall of Constantinople.
(Click to enlarge)
The Art of War
Thoughts on Sun Tzu’s the Art of War
The Art of War is a book of philosophy relating to tactics and strategies, written by Chinese General, philosopher and scholar, Sun Tzu.
Though its teachings originally applied to warfare, they can also be adapted and implemented into any situation where one or more individuals are in harmony, conflict, or any state of relation that sits in-between. It is at once the first ever military treatise, and the most widely read.
Despite having been written in the 6th century B.C.E., it continues to inform world leaders and organizations to this day, and remains a cornerstone of 21st century strategic thinking.
The following section touches on two elements that Sun Tzu identifies as being essential to strength, both in individuals and in groups. Those two elements are focus and unity.
On Focus
To focus is to consolidate your forces and direct them onto one objective.
To focus is to achieve unity within yourself, thereby maximizing your power.
Individuals focus by directing the entirety of their power onto one task, thereby maximizing their power.
On Unity
Groups focus by attaining unity. In such instances, individuals of various philosophies and self-interests (for, ultimately, the actions of all humans are informed by self-interest — even one who dies for his cause does so because he feels that the cause is in line with his personal beliefs) rally around a common mission and focus their power to that end.
Consequently, the most powerful force in human history has been — and continues to be — the unification and resulting consolidated power of large groups of people. (This unity is the core strength of empires, historical and modern, as well as corporations, social movements and all other forms of social organization).
Unity, whether present in an individual or in a multitude, equals strength.
Similarly, division — in both cases — equals weakness.
