Category Archives: Quotes

One Thing Leads To Another

Siona started it, and I’m glad she did. What I’m about to post is lots of food for thought, and since I’ve not digested it all, I only present the material.

Siona has been thinking and writing about metaphors and how integrated they are in language, how they shape our worldview and actions.

In their later work, the authors [George Lakoff, Mark Johnson] make the case that it’s our essential embodiedness that make abstract concepts rely so heavily on metaphor. We can only use our experience, the fact that we’re bipedal, forward-moving, sighted creatures, to communicate; indeed, our experience is obviously primary to (rational) thought, and so it stands to reason that the latter would be so strongly influenced by the former.

–posted Friday, September 24

I was thinking today about my earlier ramblings on metaphor. What if I’d fallen for Lakoff and Johnson’s theory too readily? If someone says “I’m in a bad state,” or “He’s defending his position” or “That new theory reshaped my views,” why wouldn’t we take their statement literally? The debater might well be defending a very real, and very important, territory: rather than being a certain spot, though, the region he’s defending is his world, his entire picture of reality. The person who is in a bad state is, literally, in a bad state: her environment is disintegrating, the air she’s breathing is polluted, her city is awash in poverty and her government corrupt. Someone whose belief system was altered may “see things differently” in a very real, and very physical sense.

–posted Sunday, September 26

Laura asked, after reading my last entry, whether the difference between literal and metaphorical language was that important. My initial reaction was that it is: it’s important to be aware of how the language we use shapes our thoughts. It’s important to be aware of the the metaphors that affect our literal world. What I didn’t realize was how recognized an issue this was, and what a hot topic it’s been recently.

It is for this reason that George Lakoff (who’s more local than I’d thought) has become such a politically engaged character. I ran across an article that ran in the Berkeley news about a year ago; in it, Lakoff talks about the difference between conservative and progressive language use, and the role that he has taken on personally in bolstering the efforts of the latter.

It’s a fascinating interview. Lakoff’s discussion of framing was especially frightening.

The same paper contains some more recent articles as well; in them, Lakoff talks about the power of phrases such as “the war on terror” (he points out that terror is a state of mind, which is internal to a person; thus “‘the war on terror’ is not about stopping from being afraid, it’s about making you afraid”) and “tax relief” (which implies that taxes are an affliction rather than a responsibility or a right). Most of these can be found at the Rockridge Institute site. It”s an impressive resource, and an impressive analysis of the power of speech and phrasing in this year’s election, and in politics in general.

–posted Monday, September 27

If you visit the links provided, you will find links in her posts to the sources she mentions reading. Siona’s thoughts have generated much commentary. One of them, titled In Defense of Terror also sparked comments. [Edit 9/29: it was not written in response to, but concurrently. Ah, synchronicity.] I posted it here in the extended entry because the statements prickle, make me uncomfortable, encourage (demand?) me to question my assumptions, and that’s important. We need to remain aware. Obviously I’m restating other peoples’ thoughts without generating my own; with regard to this blog, I try to aim for being a conduit of information (admittedly not an unbiased one, because being human precludes objectivity most of the time). So if these words incite a reponse, feel free to leave a comment, but I won’t attempt to interpret further the authors’ intent. I put this here to catalyze your brain and mine.
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Breaking The Silence

Dave of MacRaven makes an observation that hadn’t occurred to me.

I couldn’t even exist as a dhimmi in an Islamic state: as a Heathen, I’d be forced to convert or be killed. The subservient dhimmi status only applies to “People of the Book”, i.e. Christians and Jews. Kaffirs like me – well, the Koran recommends beheading.

Islam never underwent the period that Christianity did of Reformation and internal Holy War. In the West, that religious cataclysm from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries led directly to the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment led to a severe curtailment in the mixing of politics and religion. Mainstream Islam is very similar in political outlook to Christian Reconstructionism, in that both ultimately envision a “godly” state, complete with enforcement of “gods” laws.

Note that Christianity has a “reconstruction” movement trying to inject religious law back into the secular state. Islam needs no such reconstruction, as it’s never been “deconstructed”. Unless and until Islam changes its basic character, which is that of a warrior religion with “conversion” by the sword an accepted norm, they will remain a threat to the ideals of a secular state, and to religious liberty.

He puts his finger on the point that unsettles me about Islam — its militancy. Dave provides several links on his post to clarify and define his terms. He also provides a link (also included here) to an article describing an ex-Muslim woman who made a brief movie intending to highlight the “widespread but hidden violence against Muslim women.” As a result of this ten-minute movie, Hirsi Ali has received death threats via email; a rap song calls for her death, and there are threats discussed in chat rooms. She now has two bodyguards 24/7.

Storied Lives

I found Siona’s reflection provoking, and it made sense. I had difficulty choosing which part to excerpt, so I quoted most of it.

I’ve written before here about my interior wrestlings with the purpose and privilege of this journal. Why do I write? It is for myself that I settle down each evening, to release my demons through my fingertips? If so, why here? Why do I feel so conflicted about my urges to write for an audience? Why do I feel so compelled to interact? Why do I hunger for responses, and why am I inevitably surprised when they appear?

It seems so obvious now.

We used to sit around campfires. We used to weave our lives from language, explaining our days and our selves and the world in all its strange incomprehensibility. We used to make sense of ourselves through this interactive communion. It is the story that gives life meaning.

Somewhere, though, we seem to have lost track of this.

Now our shared stories are sitcoms. Our shared stories come to us from CNN, from Fox, from The New York Times, piped through the airways by some higher lying authorities. (Or is it author-ities?) We are not participants. We are consumers. No wonder we feel alienated from ourselves and our communities. Our own stories are nonexistent, and we cling to the empty substitutes of Sex in the City, Law and Order, CNN Headline News, the Weather Channel. We use the stale currencies of prefabricated narratives instead of our own far richer gifts.

I’m stumbling off track here.

What I meant to remark upon was the uniqueness of these online communities as places where storytellers meet. This sphere is comprised of a strange amalgamation of literature and spirit and friendship and politics and poetry, but regardless of the topic, and regardless of the place, each blogged word is produced by someone for personal, rather than financial, reasons. Each blogged word is taken in, reflected upon, used, and responded to. This shared creation is no small matter. This is a world of stories, as real and interactive and crucial as those myths our ancestors needed. We grant our lives meaning.

Yes, indeed. This is what compels me to blog — the creative interaction. The power to produce my own story, rather than have some corporate pablum shoved down my throat. Some people praise blogging as if it were the next best invention since sliced bread; others mock the “blogosphere” and the self-importance exhibited by the few prominent people therein. Granted, there’s a lot of puffery. Granted, blogging isn’t going to eliminate pollution or generate a cure for cancer. And there’s a lot of badly written material in cyberspace. However, it is the greatest revolution in substantive human expression in many years. We have the ability to share our thoughts and images, however grand or small, with the entire world (that has Internet access). Until blogging, the power to reach a massive number of people in print format rested in an external locus of control — book publishers, corporate media, the government. Most bloggers will likely have only a small audience. I’m sure there are blogs of eloquence that I never get to read; it takes effort to find the good stuff. I won’t have time to read it all, even if I do find it.

Blogging puts pebbles in the hand of the individual. They are no longer solely in the domain of corporations to dole out — a few here and there, based on a person’s connections. We who blog experience satisfaction in tossing the pebble and observing the ripples emanate endlessly, even if one cannot see how far those ripples go.

Making Wisdom Your Own

Found over at Chad’s:

All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yes, we must think them over again. And over. And over. No, no, I’m not saying one must become obsessive. Moreoever, I’m not a big fan of repeating affirmations. Yet there is power in the experience of repetition and reflection. Once I took a class in speech and diction. I was assigned a Shakesperian monologue to memorize, but the professor wanted me to go farther than that. He wanted me to know the words so well, become so intimate with each syllable, nuance, and concept, that I could utter them as though they originated within me. I was intrigued by the exercise and took on the challenge with all the monologues in that class. It was a transformative experience. When a wise thought becomes integrated into your being, you have had an encounter with truth.

Don’t Make Comparisons

Comparisons are relative, yet when we make them, we tend to feel they are absolute. “She’s prettier than I am. He’s more talented. I’m not thin enough, organized enough, or educated enough as Person X.” We all do this.

This week the focus is on making no comparison between oneself and others. Some food for thought:

Everybody is unique
Compare not yourself with anybody else
lest you spoil God’s curriculum.
–Baal Shem Tov

This week’s suggestion:

Create a self-portrait — a drawing, clay model, or collage — that illustrates what is unique about you.

–idea from 100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive: Living Deeply and Fully Every Day

What True Caring Asks For

Tish and I had a discussion last week about physical appearance and cultural attitudes. I then briefly posted about it and quoted from an article I’d read in the NY Times. Tish was able to access the article by Harriet McBryde Johnson elsewhere.

Tish then contemplated the article and a movie she watched. Here’s an excerpt:

It is easier to care for the beautiful, strong, able, bright and shiny. It does require a kind of effort to know how to look and really see people. True caring asks us for some effort. I think, for the people who make the effort, it doesn’t feel like effort. It feels obvious. Maybe for some people it is effortless. Maybe there is some innate character involved. But as long as we are living in a system that floods us with images and ideas about what beauty is I think we need to make some effort to check ourselves.

Library Geek

I want a Librarian Action Figure! Really, I do. There are some quotes on the page that I like a lot:

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

–Jorge Luis Borges

In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim.

–Linton Weeks

I’d also enjoy reading Ms. Pearl’s book, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason.

I’m feeling wistful for Austin and its variety of toy stores, such as Toy Joy and throughout Book People. Here, for example, is another reason Austin is weird:
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Accepting One’s Physicality

Siona has such a way with words:

I’m inordinately affected by the weather. It took me a long time to admit this; for years I refused to acknowledge that my moods might be linked to something as improbable and distant as the sky. I was a rational person, I thought; my emotions were linked to that which mattered, and not some butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon. Now I’m less embarrassed by my sensitivity. I’m an animal. I reside in a body that resides in the world that itself reclines under a pulsing membrane of pressure and weather and rain. How can my own cells ignore the atmosphere around me? How can my bones disregard the heaviness of the air? How can I not fail to respond to the sun on a clear day? It’s more embarrassing to me now to think that I once believed I should be capable of ignoring all this. I’m attuned to the world. We all are. And I no longer mind.

Eating In Silence

When we eat, far too often it is with a carelessness borne of necessity. There is information to convey to our fellow diners, business to be attended to, or a slipstream of urgent thoughts in our heads. But, in all the chatter, it is easy to overlook the physical and spiritual nourishment that food provides, and the close relationship we, as humans, share with the earth. Silent, meditative meals allow you to enjoy the pleasure of food mindfully and to strongly experience the joys of being with friends and family in a quiet, reflective way. When you eat without speaking, it’s an opportunity to focus on the origins, sight, scent, and flavor of each food, as well as the effect on your body.

Read more about mindful eating at DailyOM.

Quantum Physics And Mysticism

…there is something inane about chaining one’s God (whatever one’s understanding of this is) to something empirically falsifiable. We used to think the world was flat. We used to believe in a terracentric universe. We used to think Newtonian mechanics governed the cosmos. I hardly doubt that quantum physics will be the be-all and the end-all of scince, and if one hopes to validate the mystical by bringing in quantum theory, one had better be prepared to lose both in the long run. The Buddha was not talking about subatomic particles when he spoke of the nature of oneness. The subjective is not reducible to the objective.

—Nomen est Numen

Siona wrote a piercing review of What the #$*! Do We Know!?; I respect her insight and assessment, and I highly recommend you read the entire review.

Irreconcilable Conceptions

Jolly looked at his father.

‘Do you believe in God, Dad? I’ve never known.’

At so searching a question from one to whom it was impossible to make a light reply, Jolyon stood for a moment, feeling his back tried by the digging.

‘What do you mean by God?’ he said; ‘there are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There’s the Unknowable Creative Principle — one believes in That. And there’s the Sum of altruism in man — naturally one believes in That.’

‘I see. That leaves out Christ, doesn’t it?’
Jolyon stared. Christ, the link between these two ideas! Out of the mouth of babes! Here was orthodoxy scientifically explained at last! The sublime poem of the Christ life was man’s attempt to join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative Prinicple as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse link might have been chosen after all! Funny — how one went through life without seeing it in that sort of way!

–John Galsworthy, In Chancery (Volume II of The Forsyte Saga)

Ageless

Youth, like a flame, burned ever in his breast, and to youth he turned, to the round little limbs, so reckless, that wanted care, to the small round faces so unreasonably solemn or bright, to the treble tongues, and the shrill, chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands, and the feel of small bodies against his legs, to all that was young and young, and once more young. And his eyes grew soft, his voice, and thin veined hands soft, and soft his heart within him. And to those small creatures he became at once a place of pleasure, a place where they were secure, and could talk and laugh and play; till, like sunshine, there radiated from old Jolyon’s wicker chair the perfect gaiety of three hearts.

–John Galsworthy, The Man of Property (Volume I of The Forsyte Saga)

No-No-Notorious

As a cat lover, and one who rarely meets a cat I don’t like — or who doesn’t like me — the post from which I clipped the excerpt below is a charming story about seeking one to adopt. The link will lead you to the entire entry.

Cats, we’ve had cats in my family all my life, but finding the right cat for a family is a toss up. Its so hard to tell when one is cat shopping what the fluff balls are really like inside. It’s too bad thereÂ’s not a counseling session one can have with a newly acquired cat, one where you both sit down in a nice clean office and really get your feelings out on the table. (Cats are notorious for not sharing their feelings, someone going into therapy should get to the bottom of it.)

—Tons of thoughts

[via Zen Mama’s Teaching Blog, aka the author of Hoarded Ordinaries]

The Message of Peace

Did Jesus Christ come to form an exclusive community called Christian, or Buddha to found a creed called Buddhism? Was it Muhammad’s ideal to form a community called Muhammadan? On the contrary, the Prophet warned his disciples that they should not attach his name to his message, but that it should be called Islam, the Message of Peace.

–Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid `Inayat Khan
From: A Meditation Theme for Each Day
Selected and arranged by Hazrat Pir Vilayat `Inayat Khan

A Unique And Public God

This is a sagacious explanation for one of the “whys” of blogging:

So I asked my therapist why, and her explanation astounded and scared me more than a little bit. To paraphrase: “Everyone needs to ask the universe a few questions now and again. Some people call that prayer, some people call that meditation, there are different words and different methods but the goal is the same. We come to places we can’t figure out on our own, and even our friends and family can’t really help. So we ask the universe — the larger power, God, what have you. And I think your Web page, that act, that place, that’s your larger power. You launch the questions out there and sometimes you get a response, sometimes not. It’s the act that’s important. You’ve just chosen a unique and very public God to question.”

—lancearthur.com

[via Impenetrable Prose and Poesy]