The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.
John Maynard Keynes
***************************
I like rain. When it rains most people run inside and hide. But I like the rain, especially in the summertime, not just because it cools everything off, but because it cleans the air. It's like Mother Nature giving one of her children a bath. After the rain everything looks so clear and clean. It creates a fresh look at the world.
Many people also don't like the bathing that makes them take a fresh look at themselves, their lives and the world around them. A fresh look implies the possible necessity of changing things. People refrain from taking up and considering new ideas or seeing old ones in a brighter light.
Why adopt some new idea or some new way of doing things if it hasn't been tried before? Because if we don't, it will never be tried. Why hold on to old ideas and old ways of doing things even though they have proven to be ineffective and incorrect? Because they are familiar. That kind of thinking is like the serpent swallowing its own tail, slowly poisoning itself to death. The focus is in the wrong direction.
We always have a chance to bag up all the trash and take it to the dump. It's not a new beginning, it's a new look, without all the clutter, at the same things that hove been going on ever since there were humans walking the earth.
I know there are people who disagree with me, even in this email/journal land, people who will say the rain only brings mud, but I say let the rain come, let the bathing begin and let's have a fresh look at this strange, unpredictable, mysterious thing known as the world we live in.
DB Vagabond Journeys
****************************
Midweek puzzle: STEW
change Internet provider (6)
switch from off to particle (5)
Calloway born old (7)
auto rust (6)
pan to the office (6)
crush a hotel unit (8)
vigor for each )6)
sounds like a basement type thing (6)
worn around the neck down south (8)
southern California jungle beast (8)
answer to exist (5)
drink to the king (4)
beer joint to the left end, yes (6)
bad humor afoot (4)
Enjoy your dish.
DB
******************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Showing posts with label old ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old ideas. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Foolish Talk
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Euripides
*******************
It doesn't take courage to observe, reason things through, to arrive at a clearer image of the way things are and a new idea about them. But it takes a lot of courage to express that new idea. I sympathize with the poor scientist or artist who can explain things in ways that challenge the status quo of popular thinking. He will inevitably have his flesh hacked away by the ignorant with their pen knives and pierced by their nails and needles.
I have been called eccentric for some reason. I suspect it's because I'm always searching for unorthodox ways of thinking, saying things and doing things. The word "eccentric" means peculiar. But it also means having an unusual set of beliefs.
A long time ago I began to notice in myself and others the habit of holding on to ways of thinking and doing that remained unchallenged and treated as if they were certain and dependable rules for living. Fortunately, with an open mind, I was able to confront men and women who did challenge those habitual ways of thinking. At the same time I noticed that many people who claimed to agree with those men and women were actually paying no attention to them. In defense of what I know to be the truth about the irregular and unsheltered freshness of ideas I began to explain what was said and to give examples. I soon found my own original thinking to be influenced by the need to think deeply into what I was reading and hearing from the enlightened minds. And that's when the trouble started.
It begins with scorn and sarcastic laughter. Resentment and hate set in when people begin to doubt and think that you may be right. It gets to the point where the backward will mount a reaction so severe that it would make you stop what you're thinking and subscribe to what is the generally excepted rule. In other words you've been taken prisoner by ignorance. There are those who would return to systems the world has out grown, to refuse the right to investigate unchartered waters, to stop scientific investigation, put out the light, burn the books or rewrite them, to shoot down the eagle in it's flight. That's when a lot of good people give up. I've given in on occasion, mainly because I needed the job or the relationship. But I was never convinced that the wrong way was the right way if there was a better way.
Things changes, mountains move, and I've grown increasing distressed over the condition of people who refuse to let go of a rope that leads nowhere. What can one man do? I throw light where I can, but I will go to the cross before I will refute and deny or cease to practice what I know to be true.
DB
*******************
APRIL FOOLERY
Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 3 days.
APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.
3 ENTRIES SO FAR
On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______
Good luck
DB
****************
Euripides
*******************
It doesn't take courage to observe, reason things through, to arrive at a clearer image of the way things are and a new idea about them. But it takes a lot of courage to express that new idea. I sympathize with the poor scientist or artist who can explain things in ways that challenge the status quo of popular thinking. He will inevitably have his flesh hacked away by the ignorant with their pen knives and pierced by their nails and needles.
I have been called eccentric for some reason. I suspect it's because I'm always searching for unorthodox ways of thinking, saying things and doing things. The word "eccentric" means peculiar. But it also means having an unusual set of beliefs.
A long time ago I began to notice in myself and others the habit of holding on to ways of thinking and doing that remained unchallenged and treated as if they were certain and dependable rules for living. Fortunately, with an open mind, I was able to confront men and women who did challenge those habitual ways of thinking. At the same time I noticed that many people who claimed to agree with those men and women were actually paying no attention to them. In defense of what I know to be the truth about the irregular and unsheltered freshness of ideas I began to explain what was said and to give examples. I soon found my own original thinking to be influenced by the need to think deeply into what I was reading and hearing from the enlightened minds. And that's when the trouble started.
It begins with scorn and sarcastic laughter. Resentment and hate set in when people begin to doubt and think that you may be right. It gets to the point where the backward will mount a reaction so severe that it would make you stop what you're thinking and subscribe to what is the generally excepted rule. In other words you've been taken prisoner by ignorance. There are those who would return to systems the world has out grown, to refuse the right to investigate unchartered waters, to stop scientific investigation, put out the light, burn the books or rewrite them, to shoot down the eagle in it's flight. That's when a lot of good people give up. I've given in on occasion, mainly because I needed the job or the relationship. But I was never convinced that the wrong way was the right way if there was a better way.
Things changes, mountains move, and I've grown increasing distressed over the condition of people who refuse to let go of a rope that leads nowhere. What can one man do? I throw light where I can, but I will go to the cross before I will refute and deny or cease to practice what I know to be true.
DB
*******************
APRIL FOOLERY
Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 3 days.
APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.
3 ENTRIES SO FAR
On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______
Good luck
DB
****************
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Speak Up
Last year's words belong to last years language and next year's words await another voice.
T. S. Eliot
*****************************
Think of this. You, yourself may be the voice of the next decade. We certainly need one. Too many people are adamantly committed to old ways of thinking and old ways of expressing what they think. I envision a herd of humans inside a large mental corral, with a lush pasture and no need to challenge the fence, or a woman washing out the same old rags over and over again and calling it fashion. You might as well keep a buggy whip in your Toyota, just in case.
I love some old things, old gadgets, old works of art, old tools, old ideas. It's fun to go into the museum and look at them, or see them show up on the Antiques Road Show or to consider them in my mental historical society. And it's true the "new and improved" aren't necessarily improved. There's nothing much we can do about that except to hold the manufacturers and purveyors of the new accountable for quality. But where, oh where, is it written that we must take the old and worn out idea, dust it off and try to use it again.
I recently heard sa woman say that the new, proposed health care plan is one step closer to Marxism. What this woman doesn't know is that this nation passed Marxism many years ago and left it in the dust.
TV is no help here. Most shows are still stuck in the myth of good and evil, characters in white hats and characters in black hats, except for a few programs in which all the characters are in black hats. (Keep the pasture clean.)
The nations who can afford it are building bigger and better attack weapons and calling it "defense." We have car alarms to frighten the dog when it pees on the wheel. Unregistered guns are killing people in class rooms and churches. People are still beating the broken drum about this being a Christian country. (I wonder how many of those people would go to the stake if it came to that.) Many people still believe, because they believe the TV commercials, that big business really has the consumer's interests at heart. Some folks think the exploration of space is a waste of time and money and a few still believe we've never been to the moon. (And the holocaust never happened and will never happen.)
The world is changing very fast and most of our brains are not keeping up with it. The "Naughties" are over and we are fast approaching the "Teens" and where is the voice to speak for it, the voice that will speak the truth and be listened to by those who are still listening and hearing?
We are going to need a new voice, with new words and a new language. So speak up.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving the quiz up for another day.
"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."
Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.
Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final. Actually if this keeps up I may need some help judging. Any volunteers?
Good luck.
DB
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
T. S. Eliot
*****************************
Think of this. You, yourself may be the voice of the next decade. We certainly need one. Too many people are adamantly committed to old ways of thinking and old ways of expressing what they think. I envision a herd of humans inside a large mental corral, with a lush pasture and no need to challenge the fence, or a woman washing out the same old rags over and over again and calling it fashion. You might as well keep a buggy whip in your Toyota, just in case.
I love some old things, old gadgets, old works of art, old tools, old ideas. It's fun to go into the museum and look at them, or see them show up on the Antiques Road Show or to consider them in my mental historical society. And it's true the "new and improved" aren't necessarily improved. There's nothing much we can do about that except to hold the manufacturers and purveyors of the new accountable for quality. But where, oh where, is it written that we must take the old and worn out idea, dust it off and try to use it again.
I recently heard sa woman say that the new, proposed health care plan is one step closer to Marxism. What this woman doesn't know is that this nation passed Marxism many years ago and left it in the dust.
TV is no help here. Most shows are still stuck in the myth of good and evil, characters in white hats and characters in black hats, except for a few programs in which all the characters are in black hats. (Keep the pasture clean.)
The nations who can afford it are building bigger and better attack weapons and calling it "defense." We have car alarms to frighten the dog when it pees on the wheel. Unregistered guns are killing people in class rooms and churches. People are still beating the broken drum about this being a Christian country. (I wonder how many of those people would go to the stake if it came to that.) Many people still believe, because they believe the TV commercials, that big business really has the consumer's interests at heart. Some folks think the exploration of space is a waste of time and money and a few still believe we've never been to the moon. (And the holocaust never happened and will never happen.)
The world is changing very fast and most of our brains are not keeping up with it. The "Naughties" are over and we are fast approaching the "Teens" and where is the voice to speak for it, the voice that will speak the truth and be listened to by those who are still listening and hearing?
We are going to need a new voice, with new words and a new language. So speak up.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving the quiz up for another day.
"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."
Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.
Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final. Actually if this keeps up I may need some help judging. Any volunteers?
Good luck.
DB
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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