photo by: Kamal H.
Writing is the activity of giving thoughts material form, with the use of signs and symbols. Written materials, such as books, essays and webpages, are the materialization of someone’s thoughts. Thus, reading represents the assimilation of foreign thoughts in one’s own mind.
While we read, our mind is similar to a puppet in the puppeteer’s hands — we have no control over it, we are “thinking” with the writer’s mind. Obviously, that is not necessarily a completely bad thing, for when the source of our thoughts dries up we need to feed our minds new material. But too much reading creates mind atrophy (incapacity of thinking and judging), and probably even addiction to thinking with someone else’s mind. Further, it encourages a sort of “argumentum ad verecundiam” behavior, in which people support their borrowed thoughts with more borrowed thoughts.
Constant thinking with someone else’s head (reading) is similar to constant car driving — it won’t be long until one has difficulties in walking on his own two feet.
The opposite of reading, thinking for oneself, is the pursuit of creating a coherent, whole system of thoughts. Even though its start might be slow, the system will grow exponentially as more knowledge from without is interpreted, catalogued and put together. And unlike thoughts and ideas acquired from books, the ones which have their origins in one’s own mind flow together of themselves into a unity of thought, knowledge and insight.
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photo by: thorinside
Quite often, while surfing the internet and reading different pages, I have stopped and wondered why do so many people feel the need to write lengthy phrases in order to make a simple, often times trivial idea, intelligible.
I thought that it might be the complete lack of any writing skills, or the lack of intellect. Or perhaps it is the desire of earning money by doing nothing. Often times however, they were all combined.
Similar to book authors, there are two types of web publishers: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake.
The first type of publisher has had thoughts or experiences which to him seem to be worthy of communicating, while the second type needs money and consequently writes for money. The writer writing for writing’s sake needs to spin out his thoughts to the greatest possible length because he sells words; and the ideas he often presents have half-true, forced thoughts, as foundation. His writing also contains evasion, because he wants it to appear what it is not.
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photo by: kennythompson1987
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
William Shakespeare - All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
I believe the first two lines of the above poem are well known to most of you. The first line has even become clichéed.
But do you know where the idea that all the world’s a stage came from?
Have you ever used the word “person” to refer to another human being?
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photo by: tokyo ayano
“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
We can be quite certain that many of us owe our life’s happiness to the circumstances in which we posses a pleasant smile and so win the hearts of others.
One doesn’t need to read many self-improvement blogs to notice that the act of smiling is held high regards, almost idealized - the perfect tool for feeling happiness and making people like you.
However, the hearts who praise and value smiling would do better to take care to remember what Hamlet put down in his tablets - “that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
photo by: Toni F.
Many people seem to base their ideas about what is “true” and what is “false” upon some form of majority opinion. Sometimes it is a simple majority vote, sometimes a statistical sampling, while other times the “general consensus” of all people around the world. Whatever form it has, the basic premise that most people adhere to is that “truth” is best distinguished from “falsehood” by observing what most others believe to be the case.
That happens because people typically hold democracy in high regard; so high that often times they mistake democratic majority for “truth.” In democracies, policies and laws are determined by majority opinion - so why not “truth” as well? What must be understood is that while the democratic process may be a just means for deciding what policy to follow, that doesn’t mean that this process always hits upon the best or most correct policy.
Democracy is a system of establishing political and social justice, not a system for establishing truths. Physicists cannot determine the age of the universe by submitting the question to a vote of the majority. Philosophers cannot decide whether beauty is universal or not by meeting and casting ballots. Truth and justice are both important values, but they can’t be arrived at via the same means. Continue Reading »
