Judgment & Humanity

Judgment is mine said the Lord
That’s why I didn’t give any to humanity.
02.28.11

LImits & Quality

To have the foresight to limit growth
And the insight to limit success
In favor of life’s quality
Is a unique attribute
Of the reflective wise.
02.27.11

Worship & Pretense

Worshiping with the faithful
Are faithless conformists
And devout pretenders.
02.26.11

Intellectual & Magical

Labor intensive intellectual endeavors
Are unpopular among Homo sapiens
Who favor magical thinking
To reality testing.
02.25.10

Affluence & Crash

Affluence, the daughter of power and wealth
Is the slippery slope of excess
That ends in a crash.
02.24.11

Entice & Incite

To entice the masses, offer them delusions;
To incite their fury, take their delusions away.
02.23.11

Anachronism & Death

Orderly death amplifies and enriches life
Whereas disorderly death diminishes and impoverishes it;
Parents who die before their children
Bring meaning and dignity to their children’s lives
Whereas children who die before their parents
Bring tragedy and misfortune to their parents’ lives;
When the younger die before the older
They impart uncertainty and doubt to the living;
Anachronistic death is frightening.
02.22.11

Desire & Age

When I was young with more desires
More things were irresistible;
Now that I am old with less desires
More things are resistible;
It’s not with virtue but with age
That we resist temptations.
02.21.11

Ethics & Law

Our enlightened conscience
The source of our ethics and morality
Must be held to higher standards than the law.
What is legal is not always ethical
And what is ethical is not always legal;
The honorable few favor their conscience
When conflicts arise between ethics and the law.
02.20.11

Ethics & Sides

In most conflicts
It is unethical to favor
One side over the other
Because all sides have issues
They ought to be ashamed of;
It is far better to favor
Ethical principles
Over sides.
02.19.11

Inculcation & Ideologies

The best means to propagate an ideology
Is to inculcate with it those born to it
Till they hold it indisputably sacred
So that their absolute loyalty
Supplants their reason.
02.18.11

Science & Soul

The more advanced technologically
The more neglectful spiritually
For such is the frail balance
Between science and soul.
02.17.11

Pollution & Enlightenment

No one can enlighten a mind
Polluted with fanatic beliefs.
02.16.11

Constitution & Consequences

Constitution precedes passions
Passions precede desires
Desires precede actions
And actions precede consequences.
02.15.11

Science & Belief

It seems that humankind
Has an aversion to scientific evidence
That challenges its natural belief systems.
02.14.11

Hubris & Learning

It all comes from hubris—
Disliking our enemies means
That we are better than they are
And that we can learn nothing good
From those who are lesser than we are.
Acting like brutes, we ultimately resort
To solving our problems with force
Instead of ripening with humility
By learning from our enemies.
Only the humble learn.
02.13.11

Killing & Contagion

Killing is contagious;
The greater the numbers
And the farther the distances
The easier it gets.
02.11.12

Thoughts & Seriousness

Since thoughts are ephemeral
And change with times and places
It would be wiser not to take them seriously
Until we have examined them critically.

Ants & Homo sapiens

Ants have
Successfully evolved
As individually stupid
But collectively smart.
Unsuccessfully, however
Homo sapiens have evolved
In the opposite direction.
02.10.11

Rational & Irrational

The most dangerous thing
About being irrational
Is that one truly thinks
That one is being rational
While the rest of world is not.
02.09.11

Hope & Courage

Facing death with hope
Is exhilarating
Facing it only with courage
Is frightening.
02.08.10

Reckless & Righteous

Those among us
Who were the most reckless in youth
Seem to have become the most righteous with age.
02.07.11

Belief & Debate

Unexamined beliefs are frequent causes of conflict
Because they close the minds to open debate;
Mistaking the arguments of belief
For arguments of the intellect
Is responsible for much human misery.
02.06.11

Meaning & Life

If one does not discover
A personal meaning for one’s life
Then one’s culture, time, and place
Will inculcate one’s unsuspecting soul
With their orthodox, atavistic meanings.
02.05.10

Feedings & Death

Life feeds upon the living and the dead
Whereas death only feeds upon the living.
02.04.11

Worship & Awe

Worship is how we react to awe:
When awed by love
We worship with yearning adoration
When by gratitude, with thankful praise
When by majesty, with supplicating wonder
When by beauty, with humbling enthrallment
When by power, with obsequious flattery.
02.03.11

Bureaucracy & Efficiency

Bureaucracies
Sacrifice efficiency for the sake of control
And are more concerned with what's legal
Than with what's ethical.
02.02.11

Consistancy & Society

As individuals
We are incapable of long-term consistencies
Because time changes our minds and behaviors;
Consistency is a societal phenomenon
Forged under social pressures.
02.01.11