The future is much like the present, only longer.
Dan Quisenberry
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Hello George
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Measurements are good for designing clothes, building sheds and figuring how long it will take to drive to Aunt Martha's house. Measurements are very poor and often destructive things when it comes to life. Things take as long as they take. What difference does it make to look back and see how long it took for something to happen. The past isn't important anyway. It's over. It doesn't exist.
If the future is like today then it stands to reason if you want a certain future you should be living it as much as possible today and learning thereby how to live it more. We must make plans for the future, of course, but the best time to begin that improvement program is today, not tomorrow.
I once knew a fellow who at the age of about 30 calculated at what point in his life he would be coming down with certain diseases and infirmaries. He even tried to include me in his calculations as if it was the natural course of everyone's life. I didn't buy it. I saw him years later and it seems he had successfully programmed himself into a walking advertisement for disaster. He was a mess. And he was surprised to see me so sprightly and limber. We were the same age.
It's not a difficult thing to discipline thought. We do it all the time when we need to. It's when we don't seem to need to, when the mind is wandering, day dreaming or generally unoccupied in serious thought that the negatives might start to take over, the fears, worries and depressions. Those are the thoughts that don't belong to us. They come along with the breeze and stick to the fly paper of our minds. Then we have some cleaning up to do. Heaven forbid we should discipline our thoughts to measure how long it will be before we become sick and infirm, like the poor fellow I knew. Whereas if we keep a bright, warm beacon focused on the rights not the wrongs, the hopes not the fears, the desires not the doubts, we eventually bring those realities from today into the future, as we bring the future into today. And it doesn't matter how long it takes.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Showing posts with label measurements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label measurements. Show all posts
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Inch Worm, Inch Worm
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.
Blaise Pascal
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"I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"
(T. S. Eliot)
Is there a difference between an insignificant dot and the universe? No. What do nothingness and infinity have in common?
I was just thinking about that Eliot quote a few moments ago as I made myself another coffee. I drink it from a mug . The spoon is in the mug because I put sugar in it. I've been drinking coffee every day since I was a teenager. I can say I have measured out my life in coffee spoons. What do nothingness and infinity have in common?
A baseball team has 9 players on the field and they play 9 innings, and some times a little bit more. A football field is exactly 100 yards and a little bit more because of the end zones. A marathon race is not 26 miles, it's 26 miles, 385 yards. 2 cups of flour, 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and, what the hell, a little bit more. I'm not 71 years old. I'm 71 years, 2 months and 24 days old. I could tell you how many hours also, but I was so annoyed at being birthed at the time I forgot to look at the clock.
So what do nothingness and infinity have in common? Neither one can be measured. And because they can't be measured we cannot see them, we can't even be conscious of them other than as concepts, unknown things that have a name attached to them.
Time is such a concept also, but at least we can measure it: Sort of. Seconds, minutes, hours. Every year is exactly 365 days, except it's not. Every now and then there's an extra day.
Alright. time measurement isn't precise. What about space, inches, feet, yards, surely we can count on that, can't we? That all depends. A 6 furlong race is 3/4 of a mile around a race track. But it's only that if you stay next to the rail. If you pull out to pass another hourse your horse will run more than 3/4.
We can't get by without measuring things, or at least approximating them. I put a spoonful of sugar in my coffee. But I don't get a measuring spoon and carefully dole out a precise spoonful. I dip the spoon into the sugar bowl and plop some into the mug. Measuring puts limitations on things, but it can't be helped. Even if we try to imagine the invisible, unknown and infinite, we will still do it in shapes and places. While trying to be precise in our measurement may be a futility for all but the scientist, it is better to live in a life we can measure than to try to live in the nothingness and infinity that can't be measured.
DB
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.
15 responses so far.
Answers will be published the first day of Summer.
Thank you.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB - The Vagabond
*******************
Blaise Pascal
*******************
"I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"
(T. S. Eliot)
Is there a difference between an insignificant dot and the universe? No. What do nothingness and infinity have in common?
I was just thinking about that Eliot quote a few moments ago as I made myself another coffee. I drink it from a mug . The spoon is in the mug because I put sugar in it. I've been drinking coffee every day since I was a teenager. I can say I have measured out my life in coffee spoons. What do nothingness and infinity have in common?
A baseball team has 9 players on the field and they play 9 innings, and some times a little bit more. A football field is exactly 100 yards and a little bit more because of the end zones. A marathon race is not 26 miles, it's 26 miles, 385 yards. 2 cups of flour, 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and, what the hell, a little bit more. I'm not 71 years old. I'm 71 years, 2 months and 24 days old. I could tell you how many hours also, but I was so annoyed at being birthed at the time I forgot to look at the clock.
So what do nothingness and infinity have in common? Neither one can be measured. And because they can't be measured we cannot see them, we can't even be conscious of them other than as concepts, unknown things that have a name attached to them.
Time is such a concept also, but at least we can measure it: Sort of. Seconds, minutes, hours. Every year is exactly 365 days, except it's not. Every now and then there's an extra day.
Alright. time measurement isn't precise. What about space, inches, feet, yards, surely we can count on that, can't we? That all depends. A 6 furlong race is 3/4 of a mile around a race track. But it's only that if you stay next to the rail. If you pull out to pass another hourse your horse will run more than 3/4.
We can't get by without measuring things, or at least approximating them. I put a spoonful of sugar in my coffee. But I don't get a measuring spoon and carefully dole out a precise spoonful. I dip the spoon into the sugar bowl and plop some into the mug. Measuring puts limitations on things, but it can't be helped. Even if we try to imagine the invisible, unknown and infinite, we will still do it in shapes and places. While trying to be precise in our measurement may be a futility for all but the scientist, it is better to live in a life we can measure than to try to live in the nothingness and infinity that can't be measured.
DB
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.
15 responses so far.
Answers will be published the first day of Summer.
Thank you.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB - The Vagabond
*******************
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