My life flows on in endless song

Do not try to bend the spoon. That is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon.

A smart man once said, "Life is suffering."

Another smart man once said, "You can never step into the same river twice."

An even smarter man once said, "This is pretty good watermelon...tastes like poop."

A relatively smart man once said, "Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."

A genius once said, "peace on earth, good will toward men."

A friend once told me that every cell in your body will be replaced within seven years. The human body is on a 7 year cycle of renewal.

There. is. no. spoon.

There is one religious question. It is this...why is there something rather than nothing?

There are two prayers: Thank you, And fuck off.

The world rests on the back of an elephant. The elephant stands on a turtle. That turtle stands on another turtle. Shit...it's turtles all the way down.

Life is suffering.
Suffering arises
Suffering ceases
There is a way to make suffering cease.

A car is made of metal, wheels, an engine, seats...but where is the car? Where is the pain? There is no pain. Where is the suffering? There is no suffering. There is no spoon.

Cogito erego sum.

How can there be thought without a thinker?

That is the Buddha Nature. It is the Tao. It is the Holy Spirit.



"My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth’s lamentation

I hear the sweet though far off hymn

That hails a new creation:

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?"

grumble

I've been sick for a week, and now I have a lingering hacking cough, and I can't sleep, and I'm really behind, and i have a pile of dishes and laundry to do, and I pretty much hate life right now. That is all.

Hear ye, hear ye..

Please stop saying "I threw up in my mouth" to express your distaste for something (unless you literally did it). This joke is no longer funny. Carry on.

This kid's got a future in celebrity prank television...

Hats off to the balloon kid. You totally got me, Falcon! Prank of the year!

IU in the news

Elinor Ostrom, who is one of the professors heavily involved in my program, just won the Nobel Prize for economics. Odd, cause she's a polticial scientist. I don't have much to do with her outfit, The Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, but still, it's pretty cool. She won for her work on cooperative governance of common pool goods in local communities. Not surprisingly, that approach attracts environmental policy people, though Ostrom and her late husband Vincent originally looked at a wide variety of local governance issues, particularly policing.

Pretty cool stuff!

Correction: Vincent Ostrom is not, in fact, deceased.

New Leaves

I used to know quite a bit about global politics. Then, I went to graduate school, where I drifted into domestic politics, half purposefully, half because it seemed like I didn't have a lot of other options (which, in hindsight, probably wasn't true). I don't regret the decision to focus on domestic issues in my academic career, but the upshot is that my knowledge of international affairs and foreign policy has rotted away like so much flesh on an old zombie (just finished reading World War Z).

I've never had much of the travel bug, but this insular focus has largely squashed the little one that I did have. So, along with my newfound commitment to happiness, I think I want to commit to pursuing adventure. I am dissatisfied with my satisfaction. I have never sought dangerous, adrenaline-inducing activity. Rather, I have preferred to spend my leisure time in more comfortable confines. I have preferred movies to real life and comfortable chairs in air conditioned living rooms to hard ground after a long hike in a foreign or domestic wilderness.

This preference sucks. I don't like it. I'm tired of siphoning my adventure from other people's fantasies.

So, combining these two desires (to be less America-centric and to be more adventurous)...I might go to South America for spring break.

Spelling and Running Tallies

I seem to be getting worse and worse at spelling as each year passes. I cannot spell for shit anymore! Is this spell check's fault? Do I just tend to gravitate toward words that are hard to spell? Ugh!! I don't care that much about being a good speller, but damn, some shadow of literacy would be sufficient. I'm starting my 8th year of higher education; I should be better at this by now!

On an unrelated matter, Lady in the Water is not a very good movie. One popular theory of voting behavior and partisanship in American politics is the notion of a "running tally." This says that your partisanship is the result of comparing Dems and Reps based on a running tally of their past performance. That is why I watched this movie. M. Night Shamalanalanlanalan or whatever his name is had a good start with The Sixth Sense. I liked that movie quite a bit. Signs was fairly lame, but not terrible. The Village was ok. His tally up to this point was high enough to give this movie a shot. Also, I love the star, Paul Giamatti. He's a fantastic actor. After seeing this rambling artless disaster, I'd say Mr. Shamalongadingdong's tally is now quite low. I doubt I will see any more of his movies.