JohnRulz's profile

When did we forget our dreams?
The infinite possibilties each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking. And I’m sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving the same day over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation of the last, every movement following the gentle curves of societal norms.We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us.
And no, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn’t involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday erasing my fit into a mold. It doesn’t involve tempering my life to better fit someone’s expectations. It doesn’t involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up.
This is very important, so I want to say this as clearly as I can:
Fuck
That
Shit
http://xkcd.com/137/

Does this mean I am leaving? No. The SD forum gives me practice, and OT is a good break. But I will try to be on less often

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“I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor, that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate;
has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in:
machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical,
our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little:
More than machinery we need humanity;
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish. . .
Soldiers: don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers: don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written:
‘The kingdom of God is within man’
Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!”

-Speech from Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator
Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4

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It’s just so hard to compare kids now with kids of the past. You can’t help but belong to one group or the other. And of course every generation seems awful to the one before it Look at quotes from throughout history.
It would be nice to have some historical perspective on some of this stuff. I just don’t know what to make of it. I guess you do what you can to help the people around you and hope it turns out okay. In the end, what else can you do? Lead a crusade?
It’s presentism, the idea that historical context is irrelevant, that we understand it all. That we need to take no warnings from the follies of the past. That we’re facing something new. Socrates couldn’t imagine the internet, but people don’t change.

There is too much, and so little of it seems important.
http://xkcd.com/24/

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”… there are many reasons why you might not understand [an explanation of a scientific theory] … Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can’t believe it. You can’t accept it. You don’t like it. A little screen comes down and you don’t listen anymore. I’m going to describe to you how Nature is – and if you don’t like it, that’s going to get in the way of your understanding it. It’s a problem that [scientists] have learned to deal with: They’ve learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don’t like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from the point of view of common sense. [A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is – absurd.

I’m going to have fun telling you about this absurdity, because I find it delightful. Please don’t turn yourself off because you can’t believe Nature is so strange. Just hear me all out, and I hope you’ll be as delighted as I am when we’re through.”
– Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988),
from the introductory lecture on quantum mechanics reproduced in QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Feynman 1985).

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The Eagles – Desperado

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re losin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late

Another great monologue:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRwjD7QKJ5M

Birthday: March 11

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RECOMMENDATIONS:
Games: Half Life (series), Mass Effect (series), Assassin’s Creed (series), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefield (series), Earthbound/Mother (series)

Music: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Arlo Guthrie, Doc Watson, Pete Seeger, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, Eric Anderson, Isaac Shepard, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Two Steps From Hell.

Shows: The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Mythbusters, Burn Notice, and some anime

Movies: On the Waterfront, The Great Dictator, Airplane! The Godfather, Citizen Cane, À bout de souffle, Blade Runner, Casablanca, Seven Samurai, Chinatown, And Justice for All, Monty Python Films, Into the Wild, The Human Condition (Trilogy).

Books: Books: Little Brother, the Swiss Family Robinson, Enders Game, Dune, Slaughterhouse V, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and 1984

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Little pebble upon the sand
Now you’re lying here in my hand,
How many years have you been here ?

Little human upon the sand
From where I’m lying here in your hand,
You to me are but a passing breeze.

The sun will always shine where you stand
Depending in which land
You may find yourself.
Now you have my blessing, go your way.

-Donovan Leitch