Humility & Pride 02.07.12
Feigned humility
Is masked pride.

Nations & Human Rights 02.06.12
Nations that purport
To uphold human rights
Have themselves violated them
And continue to support nations that do.

Daydreams & Hope 02.05.12
Thank God for daydreams;
Without them life would often seem hopeless.

World & Camps 02.04.12
For each of us
The world is divided into 3 camps:
1 - Those whom we love or care about
2 - Those whom we know or know about
3 - Those whom we don’t know or know about;
Our duty as world citizens is to enlarge the 1^st & 2^nd
And continue to diminish the 3^rd group as long as we live.

Country & Mistreatment 02.03.12
If your country occasionally mistreats you
Think of the many times you have mistreated it.

Blindness & Importance 02.02.12
Those historically blind
Who feel and act important
Need to dedicate more time
Thinking about the beyond
And studying the behind.

Attitude & Misery 02.01.12
Attitude
Is a major source
Of human misery.

Child & Truth 01.31.12
The child in us
Our atavistic taproot
The pearl within our oyster
Is the kernel of truth within our soul
Which repeatedly tells us who we really are.

Power & Abuse 01.30.12
As power invites abuse
Likewise, abuse invites power.

Anger & Good 01.29.12
Anger
Blinds us to the good
In whatever we’re angry at.

Fulfillment & Denial 01.28.12
Desires are ephemeral, when snuffed by fulfillment
And exaggerated, when kindled by denial.

Wise & Sure 01.27.12
The wise worry whenever they feel sure
Because most things they have felt sure about
Turn out not to be as true as they once had thought.

Envy & Joy 01.26.12
Of all the fortunates on earth
The most enviable are those who
In spite of life’s storms and droughts
Remain ever joyful.

Programing & Ontogenesis 01.25.12
What we become has more to do
With what programmed our brains
When they were impressionable
Than with our ontogenesis.

Learning & Studying 01.24.12
Few are those who learn
Without having to
And fewer, who study
Without needing to.

Revolution & Chaos 01.23.12
Revolutions
Initially, bring chaos and blood shed
Though eventually might bring about order.

Opinion & Gut 01.22.12
The proclivity to formulate an opinion
Based on gut feelings or insufficient evidence
Is a universal and most detrimental human attribute.

Nature & Nations 01.21.12
There has never been a nation on earth
That has not been defeated
By human nature.

Beauty & Truth 01.20.12
We are beauty hunters, gatherers, and worshipers
Because we confuse beauty with good, ugliness with bad
And pay dear money for a picture, which shows us beautiful
Even though our real image has long lost its appeal.

Egos & Defenses 01.19.12
How we regard ourselves
Has less to do with how others regard us
And more to do with our innate ego defenses
Which, regardless of external facts
Insist on seeing the self
In a positive light.

Objective & Subjective 01.18.11
There are three perceptions of ‘Better’:
Those who feel better when they’re better
Those who don’t feel better when they’re better
And those who even feel worse when they’re better;
The balance between the subjective and objective
Ultimately determines that which is perceived.

Understanding & Compassion 01.17.12
There is no true understanding
Without compassion.

Life & Exile 01.16.12
Those who say no to life
Send their souls
Into Exile.

Sophistication & Joy 01.15.11
The ultimate sophistication
Is joy.

Physical & Intellectual 01.14.12
Physical pleasures
And Physical desires
Slowly diminish with age
While those of the intellect
Continue to prosper and grow.

Wine & Company 01.13.12
Bad wine
Consumed in good company
Tastes good
And good wine
Consumed in bad company
Tastes bad.

Important & Fools 01.12.12
Some fools might think that they are important
But all who think that they are important are fools.

Knowable & Unknowable 01.11.12
We expend more energy
Trying to explain the unknowable
Than trying to comprehend the knowable.

Indoctrination & Conflicts 01.10.12
Of all our planet’s lethal pollutants
Atavistic pollution of the young minds
Of intellectually defenseless children
Foments most future conflicts.

Language & Bricks 01.09.12
Our language
Our highest achievement, perhaps
Is made of building bricks, which we call words;
Some of us stack their bricks into unintelligible piles
Some build castles with high, unscalable walls
Some design homes with beautiful gardens
And a few build magnificent cathedrals.

Anger & Power 01.08.12
The magnificent high of anger
Intoxicates us with the illusion
Of empowerment and resolve
Which causes us to cling to it
Oblivious of its dangers and harms.

Stimulation & Passion 01.07.12
Stimulation and Passion
Are the parents of creativity and productivity;
Without them, joyless platitudes and slothful inertia.

Dictatorship & Details 01.06.12
Freedom is an illusion
For even a free society
Is composed of dictatorships
Such as the insurance companies
The giant corporations, the lobbies
The IRS, the Military, and life’s details.
The only dictatorship within our control
Is that of details, which robs us of simplicity;
The more details we will allow into our lives
The more details we will have to attend to
And the less time we will have to be free.

Youth & Death 01.05.12
Not even disease or death
Can rob an old man
Of his youth.

Feelings & Circumstance 01.04.12
Everything human
Thoughts, actions, behaviors
Appearances, beliefs, expressions
Can be inflicted, influenced, or modified
By the relentlessly fierce forces of circumstance;
Our personal feelings, however, represent who we truly are
And though we are unable to willfully change our feelings
Our feelings—reasonable or not—do, indeed, change us.

Death & Bribery 01.03.11
One cannot bribe a dying man with treasure
But one can, with hope.

Significance & Joy 12 20.11
We are of two temperaments;
Those who wish to leave their traces behind
And that gives significance to their lives and works
And those who have no such cares or desires
And live just for life and in the present moment.

Security & Insults 12.19.11
Hypersensitivity
Mushrooms out of insecurity;
Insult the insecure
And a mushroom cloud arises;
Insult the secure
And they do not notice.

Permanence & Delusions 12.18.11
All of life
And all its processes
Though always temporary
Are often regarded as permanent—
A perilous, slippery slope
Which conjures delusions
And promotes conflicts.

Happiness & Self 12.17.11
Those who look for happiness
Beyond themselves
Seldom find it.

 Enemies & Wars 12.16.11
Powerful nations
Find great heroism and glory
In waging wars against external enemies;
Whereas wars against internal enemies, such as
Poverty, mental illness, illiteracy, waste, excesses, etc.
Are waged halfheartedly and are never won.

Greatness & Age 12.15.11
One of the reasons why
Great nations decline with time
Is because their governments
Grow demented with age.

Good & Bad 12.14.11
We are wired to generalize from details
Before proper examination of patterns;
Because of this inveterate tendency
To pass summary judgments in our minds
We summarily classify people as good or bad
When, in sooth, we all are good and bad
And only the proportions vary among us.

Details & Peace 12.13.11
The number of details
A mind has to process
Is inversely proportional
To the state of inner peace;
Peace comes with simplicity
And turmoil, with complexity.

Belief & Danger 12.12.11
The most dangerous race upon planet earth
Is the human race
And the most dangerous attributes of the human race
Are inculcated beliefs
And the most dangerous beliefs are those held as truths
Without evidence or examination or regard for others.

Romanticism & Reality 12.11.11
One of the most poignant examples
That demonstrates our inherent romanticism
Is our tendency to provide naïvely simple explanations
For our most profound and complicated emotional problems.

Information & Judgement 12.10.11
Informing one’s self by reading
Where one has no experience or judgment
Is a major source of wasteful and costly mistakes.

Might & Ethics 12.09.11
Mighty nations
Do not become powerful
Utilizing kindness and compassion;
That is why they’re all inherently unethical.

Enemy & Hate 12.08.11
The word enemy
Is a euphemism for hate
And sanctions inhumane behavior.

City and Cemetery 12.07.11
Seen from the air on a foggy day
A city resembles a crowded cemetery.

Virtues & Vices 12.06.11
A made-up mind is dangerous;
It exaggerates the virtues of its ideas
And is blind to their adversities and hazards.

Ceremonials & Beliefs 12.05.11
Were it not for ceremonials and rituals
Which keep alive the history of a people
None of us would have grown up shackled
With so many handed-down, ancestral beliefs.

Love & Perception 12.04.11
We can only love
What we can perceive
With our thoughts or senses;
What remains un-perceived
Remains unloved.

Beauty & Passion 12.03.11
Beauty
Carries no passions within itself
But it engenders passions in those who perceive it.

Enlightenment & Pleasure 12.02.11
Enlightenment
Releases our pleasures
From our body’s penitentiary
Into the free expanses of our intellect.

Loyalty & Place 12.01.11
If one dedicates
One’s loyalties
To where one grew up
Or to where one is living
Then one has missed his calling
To be equally loyal to all humanity.

Age & Periphery 11.30.11
Old age
Is a migration
From center to periphery.

Pleasures & Joys 11.29.11
Whereas pleasures and thrills
Are but ephemeral attributes of our bodies
Most joys are lasting attributes of our minds and souls.

Venting & Listening 11.28.11
We vent for relief
And to convince ourselves
That what we are saying is true
And to seek support from our listener
Who’s cornered & pressured to hear
Only our side of the story.

Written & Read 11.27.11
A lot has been written
But a little has been read
And far less has been understood.

Stubborn & Starved 11.26.11
Every stubborn person
Is besieged within himself
Holding on to a starved intellect.

Giving & Loss 11.25.11
Many have been impoverished by loss
But no one has been impoverished by giving.

Persecution & Oppression 11.24.11
Persecution and oppression
Those ostentatious arms of power
Which seek to enforce its rule and hegemony
Proceed oblivious of the dangerous anger they foment
Among those never-forgetting, ever-growing generations
Who, like a malignant mole, multiply and ramify in the dark.

Victory & Failure 11.23.11
Victory is treacherous
For it oft leads to complacency
Which could lead to failure;
Failure is motivating
For it oft leads to struggle
Which could lead to victory.

Coincidence & Prediction 11.22.11
Believing in coincidence
Is wiser than believing in predictions
For coincidence often provides opportunities
While predictions often provide illusions and disappointments.

Talk & Worth 11.21.11
Talk is cheap
But the right words
At the right time
Are priceless.

Shopping & Countries 11.29.11
Shopping for countries
Is the modus operandi of the future;
An unenlightened country that rules with cruel suppression
Will lose its intelligentsia to other competing countries,
Which provide freedom, justice, and opportunity.

Opinion & Change 11.19.11
A true intellectual
Like a true scientist
Is one who always searches
For evidence that runs contrary
To his own ideas and systems of belief
And who always sways his opinion
With the sway of new evidence.

Enlightenment & Violence 11.18.11
Cultivating a sense of aesthetics
A love for harmony and beauty
Enhances enlightenment and tolerance
And discourages dissonance and violence.

Audiences & Pretense 11.17.11
In the conduct of human affairs
The larger the audiences
The greater the political pretenses;
Politicians re-write history
To please the majority
At the expense of truth,
Which is never popular.

 

Minds & Disasters11.16.11
A deadly mind
Featuring a deadly personality
Is far worse than any deadly disease;
Its distorted judgment invites recurrent disasters.

Beginnings & Ends 11.15..11
How ruthlessly does a bad end
Spoil a good life or a promising beginning;
Naught is well unless it ends well.

Herds & Individuals 11.14.11
A consistent features of Homo sapiens
That distinguishes them from other animal herds
Is their instinctive lack of herd mentality;
Their tendency to behave as individuals
Causes them to get along poorly
Makes them hard to govern
Incites them to splinter into feuding factions
And renders conflict more natural than peaceful coexistence.

Majority & Truth 11.13.11
Since Homo sapiens are delusional followers
Who will follow anyone’s promises
Of hope, wealth, and freedom
A large following or majority vote
Lends little legitimacy or credence
To ideologies, beliefs, or aggressions;
History is littered with happenings
Triggered by passionately espoused ideas
That ended up having disastrous consequences;
Truth is seldom popular but it ultimately prevails.

Primitiveness & Noise 11.12.11
One can measure one’s own primitiveness
By measuring the quantity of noise one generates
Plus the quantity of noise one tolerates.

Live & Die 11.11.11
There are so many ways to die
But only one way to live;
To live is to struggle.

Emotions & Instincts 11.10.11
If we could perceive emotions as involuntary instincts
They would become much easier to comprehend
And to accept as programmed affects.

Power & Shame 11.08.11
Power rules and justifies
Thereafter dies with all its lies
And then a new power does rise
To do the same and die the same;
Powers don’t learn nor can be wise
No body wins the power game
Homo sapiens are a shame.

 Good Death & Poor Life 11.08.11
Trading a good death
For a poor quality life
Is miserly cowardice.

Reality & Dreams 11.07.11
Shattering dreams and hopes
Causes more profound grief
Than wrecking realities.

Internal & External 11.06.11
Just as it is far easier
To look good on the outside
Than to be good on the inside
It is also easier for a person or nation
To take care of external problems
Than to manage internal ones.

Success & Trap 11.05.11
Beware of initial success;
It’s a trap we all fall into.

Procrastination & Failure 11.04.11
Procrastination
Invites failure.

God & Bankruptcy 11.03.11
Nations, ideologies, and groups
Who invoke their Gods to justify
Committing cruelty and injustice
Should all file spiritual bankruptcy.

Self Destructiveness & Choices 11.02.11
Human nature is so self-destructively wired that
When it has options, it chooses to side with
Beliefs and delusions over reality
Appearances over substance
Pretense over truthfulness
Language over meaning
Sloth over endeavor
Quantity over quality
And beauty over intellect.

Class & Character 11.01.11
Class is defined by character
Rather than by any other attribute;
Kind, compassionate, courteous, giving
Humble, brave, moderate, and tolerant
Are the eight pillars of a humane aristocrat.

Insults & Self Worth 10.31.11
To become un-insultable
Is to become fortified
With the confidence of
Impenetrable self worth.

Forgetfulness & Attention 10.30.11
We only forget
What does not occupy our attention.

Joy & Relish 10.29.11
The inability to enjoy
What someone you love enjoys
Invites distance and tempers the relationship;
For love to remain aflame
Lovers must learn to relish each other’s joys.

Terseness & Substance 10.28.11
Beware—
Too many words
Dilute the substance.

Wine & Feelings 10.27.11
There are two reasons
For good wine to taste bad:
Because one’s company is bad
Or because one feels bad.

Can & Should 10.26.11
‘Nothing can be done’
Should not be interpreted to mean
That nothing should be done.

Reading & Writing 10.25.11
Reading is promenading within another’s imagination;
Writing is taking a dive into one’s own soul.

Society & Pretense 10.24.11
Pretense is the web that snares society
And the more complex the society
The greater are its pretenses.
Being true to one’s self brings peace
And gaining peace is predicated upon
Having less to do with society’s pretenses.
Perhaps, that is why
It is harder to be true to one’s self
When one lives in a complex society.

Atavisms & Dogmas 10.23.11

We either think with reason or with instincts;
Instincts imprison us while reason sets us free.
Only the brave dare jettison their atavistic chains
And dare question ancestral beliefs and dogmas;
If you want the beast to froth and roar
Ask why belief should sensor thought.

Efficiency & Success 10.22.11
Efficiency subsumes knowledge, effort,
Intelligence, hunger, passion, faith,
And health, both mental and physical;
It is the meter of human productivity
And success is its well-begotten child.

Power & Shame 10.21.11
Power rules and justifies
And then it dies with all its lies
Then a new power does rise
To do the same and die the same;
Powers cannot ever be wise
No one wins the power game
Homo sapiens are a shame.

Enhancement & Transparency 10.20.11
We use everything at our disposal
To enhance our personal positions
Unaware of our transparency.

Avoidance & Best 10.19.11
To be the best one can be
Is to apply one’s efforts
To maximum tolerance.
To be the most comfortable
Undisturbed, and at peace
Consumes avoidance effort
And stifles our best.

Gratitude & Humility 10.18.11
Those who get angry
At having gotten old
Would have gotten angrier
At having died young
Because they lack both
Humility and gratitude.

Avoidance & Enlightenment 10.17.11
Just as some people 
Drown their spirits in alcohol
To avoid serious thinking and self examination
So do many others
Narcotize their minds with reading
To avoid radical change and self-enlightenment.

Love & Beauty 10.16.11
There is no beauty without love;
One must love something about
Whatever one finds beautiful.

Worth & Self 10.15.11
Self worth
That does not arise
From within the self
Is worthless.

Excess & Nature 10.13.11
Were it not for the desire of excess
That insatiable black hole in human nature
Moderation and peace would have been possible.

Power & Decay 10.13.11
The military powers of nations
Seem to grow at the expense
Of their internal decay.

Ethics & Nations 10.12.11
To bypass ethical standards
All that individuals have to do
Is think like nations.

Information & Knowledge 10.11.11
The illusion that we can know the real persons
From what we hear and read about them
Fuels curiosity and inflames gossip
And also betrays truth.

Age & Speed 10.10.11
The older we get, the faster we age
And the more each day depletes
Our dwindling life reserves.

Heaven & Hell 10.09.11
The requirements of heaven are seven:
Peace, Joy, Love, Passion, Health, Excellence
And the dedication to worthy causes;
The requirements of hell are the negatives
Of the requirements of heaven.

Food & Noise 10.08.11
Restaurants that compete
In serving large portions of unhealthy foods
With even larger portions of disturbing noise
Must think that having more to eat and less to say
Are the corner stones of a healthy social intercourse.

Calling & Intrusion 10.07.11
When we are seized
With the urge to call someone
We forget that our call is an intrusion

Age & Distance 10.06.11
We laughed at old age
Because it seemed too distant
Then cried when we got there
Because it was too near.

Joy & Pain 10.05.11
Memories of pain and suffering
Outlast those of pleasure and joy.

Initial & Success 10.04.11
Initial successes
Blind us to potential failures;
The gambler who initially wins
Then returns to lose everything,
The initial weight loss with a diet
Followed by subsequent weight gain,
The initial passion of a relationship
Followed by a dirty divorce,
The winning of the first battle
Followed by losing the war…

Delusions & Realities 10.03.11
Humanity
Is powered by delusions
And disempowered by realities.

Need & Treatment 10.02.11
People will treat you better
The more they need you
And worse, the more you need them.

Myths & Heroes 10.01.11
Myths
Shine brighter
Than their heroes.

Mindsets & Belief 09.30.11
Most mindsets do not last;
If we don’t believe such thoughts
They would pass on and leave us alone.

Regard & Disregard 09.29.11
Those who have learned to disregard
Always come out ahead;
Rather than take note and react,
Or feel insulted and avenge,
Or feel offended and suffer,
Be fierce with your disregard.

Still & Age 09.28.11
The most condescending English word is ‘still’:
-You still look good…
-You are still strong…
-You’re still working…
-You’re still independent;
The young have no idea
How much the word ‘still’
Can hurt an aging soul.

Rational & Irrational 09.27.11
Rational and irrational
The two types of thinking
Both seem equally logical to the mind.

Information & Wisdom 09.26.11
Information is stored
Knowledge is learned
Judgment is earned
And wisdom, burned
Into the soul.

Mind & Fallow 09.25.11
A bright mind is fallow
When unsown with interests and passions.

Good & Wrong 09.24.11
A good idea
Especially when wrong
Can often lead, in ways unforeseen
To unpredictably good outcomes.

Thinking & Knowing 09.23.11
We always think
Beyond what we know;
And even though we know
That we can never know enough
We still believe everything we think.

Wealth & Desert 09.22.11
Wealth is like water;
With it there’s growth
Without it there’s desert.

Love & Wounds 09.21.11
Love wounds are cruel
And come from both directions;
When one gives and doesn’t receive
Or when one receives and doesn’t give;
They would be less cruel if they would bleed.

Said & Heard 09.20.11
In conversation
Whatever is said
Is seldom understood;
Every ear filters out
What it doesn’t wish to hear
And lets in what it wants to hear
Including whatever remains unsaid.

Desires & Fulfillment 09.19.11
In youth
We miss the fulfillment of our desires;
In age
We merely miss our desires.

Tolerance & Enlightenment 09.17.11
The measure of enlightenment is tolerance
And the measure of primitiveness is intolerance;
For tolerance is rooted in humility, respect, empathy
Whereas intolerance, in hubris, disrespect, and ignorance.

Energy & Output 09.16.11
Human energy
Which is personally discernible
Cannot be measured by any science
And is evident to others only through output.

Democracy & Meritocracy 09.15.11
A democracy
Cannot in time
Remain a meritocracy
Because the voting process
Decays into an emotional exercise
Of unenlightened, uninformed masses.

Ideologies & Identities 09.14.11
Ideologies woo
The collective conscience
And foster unifying identities.

Life & Living 09.13.11
It takes a long life
To learn how to live.

Justice & Power 09.12.11
A nation’s sense
Of international justice
Is inversely proportional
To it’s military powers.

Government & Efficiency 09.11.11
A government’s efficiency
Depends on the enlightenment
Of the people it governs.

Difficulty & Attitude 09.10.11
There is no difficulty
That cannot be subdued
With the right attitude.

Mediocrity & Compassion 09.09.11
Tolerating mediocrity
And treating it with grace
Is the noblest expression
Of human compassion.

Individual & Group 09.08.11
One’s individual conscience
Is anesthetized by one’s group;
What we can sanction collectively
Is often unconscionable individually.

Terrorism & Counter-terrorism 09.07.11
In our fight against terrorism
We have countenanced our own.

Reason & Bias 09.06.11
Irrational and unreasonable thinking
Feeds the roots of humanity’s biases
Which bear most of its evil fruits.

Aging & Learning 09.05.11
Aging begins
When we stop learning.

Robots & DNA 09.04.11
Unaware living things
Are DNA Robots;
Aware living things
Are DNA robots
With illusions of choice.

Delusions & Truth 09.03.11
Delusions that enhance life’s quality
May be better than life disruptive truths;
But painful truths are infinitely better
Than life-damaging delusions.

Bad & Good 09.02.11
If you do something bad
Your good will soon be forgotten
For it’s the last impression that counts.

Laws & Adverse Effects 09.01.11
All enacted laws have adverse side effects
Which are not discovered until after the laws are passed.

Software & Hardware 08.31.11
People differ
Not because of their minds
But because of what’s in their minds;
While people’s hardware is relatively similar
Resulting in what is regarded as human nature
People’s software is infinitely diverse and impressionable
Programmed by genes, nurture, time, place, and coincidence.

Kingdom & Size 08.30.11
The smaller the kingdom
The happier the king and his people;
There’s an ideal size beyond which
All things diminish.

Democracy & Dictatorship 08.29.11
Democracy is a rebound reaction to dictatorship
And, like a rebound marriage after a divorce,
It discovers its deadly faults with time.

Peace & Anguish 08.28.11
Five things shatter inner peace
Worry, hurry, anger, loss, and fear;
And all five are consequences
Of disproportionate attention
Paid to our physical beings
And blatant inattention
Paid to our spirits. 

Amour & Attraction 08.27.11
Amorous relationships
Are more attraction dependent
Than love dependent;
Liking tightens the love bond
And disliking shatters it.

Time & Waste 08.26.11
No matter where you are
And regardless of what you’re doing
Some one will waste your time
Or you will end up wasting it.

Mind & Freedom 08.25.11
Mental freedom is assessed on two scales:
The resistance with which one adopts a new truth
And the readiness which one sheds an old belief.

Having Sex & Making Love 08.24.11
Having sex
Is like grabbing a bite
From a fast food drive-in
And gulping it quickly without relish;
Making love
Is dining on a white table cloth
With hors d’oeuvres and champagne
In an ambiance laced with Mozart at sunset.

Pleasures & Sharing 08.23.11
A pleasure shared
Is a pleasure doubled.

Mind & Speech 08.22.11
When we need to speak our minds
We’ll talk to any one who would listen;
Our minds are like blown up balloons
One puncture and they readily deflate.

Love & Death 08.21.11
The reason we love life
Is because we are life
And the reason we shun death
Is because it takes all that we love away.

Capitalism & Excess 08.20.11
Capitalism
Thrives on excess
And languishes in austerity.

Mind & Pollution 08.19.11
If one grants access into one’s mind
Of unfiltered ideas and notions
One’s mind becomes polluted
With unexamined thoughts.

Nature & Cycles 08.18.11
Our minds are made of cyclic intertwining circuits;
Like nature, we cycle in and out of seasons
In and out of love, passions, pleasures
Careers, routines, aspirations, wealth
Relationships, ideas, beliefs, moods, biases
Birth, life, illness, death, resurrection, and infinity.

Love & Opportunity 08.17.11
In life we follow love and opportunity
Wherever they go, we go.

Loyalties & Ideas 08.16.11
Loyalties are
Physical, emotional, or abstract;
We are either loyal to business or family or friends
Or to abstract ideologies such as nation, religion, belief, or love.

Beauty & Health 08.15.11
How quickly
When one falls ill
Health becomes beauty.

Mind & Kingdom 0814.11
As long as I can keep my mind
I can fashion my own, private kingdom
And rule it as a benevolent monarch.

Thin & Thick 08.13.11
Beauty becomes blurred
Behind the veil of years;
It is most visible in youth
When the skin is thick
And the veil is thin,
And least visible in age
When the skin is thin
And the veil is thick.

Silence & Speech 08.12.11
Even when there’s nothing to say
Or even when nothing needs to be said
People still speak because silence is awkward
While speaking without saying anything is comforting.

Sex & Health 08.11.11
The sick are not sexy
And the sexy are not sick;
For sex appeal is contingent upon health
As is procreation and survival of all species.

Sovereign & Size 08.10.11
A greater sovereign
Has less joy than a lesser sovereign
Who has less joy than the tiniest sovereign,
The one who is head of his own family or small business.

Public & Human Nature 08.09.11
Whoever deals with the public
Ends up with a lower opinion
Of human nature.

Truths & Offense 08.08.11
Many of life’s universal truths
Offend humanity with their nudity
And without proper vestments
Are barred from society.

Insults & Slavery 08.07.11
To allow one’s self to become insulted
Is to allow one’s soul to become conquered
Is to allow others to invade one’s mind
Is to surrender one’s independence
Is to submit one’s free intellect
To sudden mental slavery.

Works & Impact 08.06.11
We are our works;
Nothing else lasts
Or has lasting impact.

Convince & Overpower 08.05.11
Whoever convinces me
Overpowers me
If that takes all my doubts away.

Knowns & Unknowns 08.04.11
Everything we think we know
Is in many ways, temporary
To be supplanted later on
By what we do not yet know.

 

Identity & Place 08.03.11
We are what we believe we are—
If our genes sprout in Christian America
We believe we are Christian Americans
And if they sprout in Muslim Arabia
We believe we are Muslim Arabs.
On the other hand
Our dear cats and dogs
Do not derive their identities
From wherever their genes sprout;
They believe they are just cats and dogs
Regardless of where they happen to grow up
And they do get along with each other
Shamefully better than we do.

Emotionalism & Credibility 08.02.11
Emotionalism
Cancels credibility.

Certainty & Opium 08.01.11
If one’s mind is so certain about an idea
That it allows not a measure of doubt
Then one’s mind has been narcotized
By the sweet opium of certainty.

Love & Misfortune 07.31.11
To love the good in others is easy
But that’s not what love is about;
To understand the bad in others
As the inevitable consequence
Of life’s pernicious coincidences
And to respond with compassion
To their dealt misfortunes
Is the epitome of humane love.

Death & Democracy 07.30.11
Of the many types of death
The most insidious and pernicious
Is the death by democracy.

Fear & Children 07.29.11
Fear of children is overwhelming
When parents become elderly
And children become covetous.

Courage & Fear 07.28.11
Courage is not about fighting others
It’s about fighting the fears within us.

Hunger & Virtue 07.27.11
Craving and virtue sit on opposite poles of the brain;
The more we crave, the less virtuous we become
The less we crave, the more virtuous we can be
For hunger is the archenemy of virtue
Satiety, its friend
And starvation, its deadliest poison.

Internal & External 07.26.11
On the highways
Two faces travel together
The faces of the cars and those of their drivers;
Throughout life
Two faces travel together
The faces we wear and the faces we are;
In both situations, the external faces
Have little to do with the internal ones.

Highways & Courtesy 07.25.11
On the highways
Courtesy is abandoned
And individual speeds are maintained
To the peril of other motorists.

Anger & Generalization 07.24.11
Anger
Is the shortest way
To nasty generalizations.

Peace & Caring 07.23.11
Peace comes when we can wear
A different stocking on each foot
And neither notice nor care.

Control & Irrationality 07.22.11
It’s easy to be in control
When one is calm & rational;
Most out-of-control actions
Are committed when we’re
Angry or temporarily irrational.

 

Projection & Influence 07.21.11
We are projectors;
The wider and farther
We socially project our lights
The more we shine and influence.

Action & Reaction 07.20.11
Every action
Is but a reaction;
Everything we feel and think
How we dress and behave
Everything we say or do
Are all but reactions
To the life we’re in.

Tiers & Intellect 07.19.11
The tiers of human intellect
Rise with their scrutiny of evidence;
Those who believe what they hear or read
Without taking time to investigate the evidence
Sit lower than those who investigate before believing;
And those who dare evolve beliefs based on newer evidence
Sit isolated in the highest realms and don’t cheer with the masses.

Truth & Feuds 07.18.11
Truth smirks
When factions feud.

Delusions & Reality 07.17.11
Delusional minds cannot know
Nor can they ever be shown
That they’re delusional;
The deeper the delusion
The fiercer it defies reality.

Reason & Irrationality 07.16.11
It is not possible to reason
With an irrational mind;
Irrational minds use good logic
To justify their irrationality
And reject good reason
Which exposes their irrationality.

Forces & Us 07.15.11
The four forces that weave
Our time-space cocoons
For us as individuals and groups
And constantly reshape our world
Are religion and ideology
Science and technology
Resources and demography
Climate and natural forces.

Conflict & Compromise 07.14.11
Whenever conflict polarizes people
Truth lies in between their feuding beliefs
But neither faction is capable of viewing that reality
Which is discernible only through mediation and compromise
Often last resorts utilized after mutual exhaustion.

Charlatans & Humanity 07.13.11
Charlatans are of two types, corrupt and delusional;
The corrupt pretend that what they do is right
While the delusional believe that it is right
And in between these two extremes
Reclines deceitful humanity.

Laws & Freedom 07.12.11
All laws, rules, commandments, and traditions
Put limitations on personal freedoms;
Total, uninhibited freedom
Is primordial anarchy.

Humans & Gullibility 07.11.11
Human race gullibility
Provides the fertile soil for—
Rhetoric, advertising, ideologies,
Charlatanism, healing and health beliefs,
Political views, religious feuds, nationalism
And all kinds of sales and marketing schemes.

Fortunes & Pyramids 07.10.11
Those with fortunes
Build pyramids…

Corruption & Storm 07.09.11
Corruption, is like air
Pervasive, tacit, everywhere
But, every now and then, a storm
Reveals its devastating effects.

Victory & Hangover 07.08.11
Victory is intoxicating
Then comes the hangover.

Stages & Life 07.07.11
Birth, rise, demise, and death
Are the major stages of life
And all four are modifiable
Depending on circumstances.

Law & Lawlessness 07.06.11
An un-enforced law
Invites lawlessness.

Spirituality & Materialism 07.05.11
To those who dwell in the houses of spirit
Having less is more;
To those who dwell in the palaces of gold
Having more is less;
Unlike spiritualism, materialism is insatiable.    

Cheerfulness & Beauty 07.04.11
Nothing is more attractive than cheerfulness;
To retain cheerfulness in the face of adversity
And to make cheerfulness one’s primary persona
Is the most irresistible kind of beauty.

Ideas & Veracity 07.03.11
The love of an idea
Leads one to invest
Great time and effort
In working towards that idea,
Which imparts great significance to it
Regardless, unfortunately, of its veracity.

Years & Thieves 07.02.11
The years are thieves
Benevolent at first
Ruthless at last;
They give us all
Then take it all away.

Age & Aging 07.01.11
Age advances quickly for the old, slowly for the young;
That is why the old can hardly believe their advancing ages
While the young can hardly believe that they will ever get old.

Wealth & Nobility 06.30.11
While one’s wealth is measured with money
How it was accumulated marks one’s honesty
How readily it is spent reveals one’s generosity
And what it is spent on defines one’s nobility.

Worth & Joy 06.29.11
Those most successful envy those who are most joyful
And those who are most elaborate and complex
Envy those who have attained simplicity
For a life’s worth is measured with joy
Joy imparted and joy received.
06.29.11

Coincidence & Worship 06.28.11
The history of life in its entirety
And the entire life of every living thing
Are complex series of seeming coincidences
Which must occur in exacting, specific, sequences
Otherwise, life as we know it, would neither exist nor go on.
It is this mysterious order that orchestrates the universe
This harmonic, synchronized, miracle we call nature
That awes us and summons our souls to worship.

Myths & Explanations 06.27.11
Humanity’s desperate need to explain the unexplainable
Is humanity’s womb that gives birth to its myths;
Indeed, myths are humanity’s ancient children
To which we cling in spite of science
And all its modern explanations.

Words & Thoughts 06.26.11
Our words unlock unconscious thoughts held hostage in our brains
For when un-verbalized, these thoughts remain unintelligible
A muddle of blurred, un-expressed, un-formulated mirages.
With language we think and are able to excavate our dormant thoughts;
Begin a conversation and you’ll discover some inn