A section of the speech from the author of 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again':
"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Ready Boots?
One of the first examples of what was later to become music video, Scopitones were 16mm films shot in tandem with music and available for viewing for a small fee via film 'jukeboxes' starting in the 60's.
You Can Visit the Past, But You Can't Change It
Next time you travel back in time, you can only go sightseeing.
Create Your Own Magnetic Ribbon
Design your own magnetic ribbon message to slap on your car. Now you'll fit in with the rest of the comrades
Monday, June 27, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Virtual Boss
If you actually lived Office Space in real life like me, then this soundboard of Lumbergh is for you. Courtesy of Eric
Video Literature
Want to test drive a new book? This site takes the audio from a section of an audiobook read by the author and animates it. Broadband only.
Ten Minute Philosophy
As a Philosophy graduate, I love this site. For each philosopher you can choose to read the squashed (two sentence) version of each of their influential works, or the condensed version - which can generally be read in less than ten minutes. A pie chart on the right indicates the time it takes to read each work so you know what time comittment you're in for. Seeing Wittgenstein condensed is quite the experience for me, I tell you what...
Billy Harvey
His music is alright, his Polaroid based flash site is novel. I wish this guy was my neighbor. Plus he looks like Bob. Sort of.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Home Science Experiments with Twinkies
Do Twinkies conduct electricity? This and many other questions related to this synthetic latex filled product are explored. The results of the experiments are written in haiku.
British Library Books
Browse one of DaVinci's Sketchbooks in his own hand (written in code and mirror-image). Or Jane Austen's amateur partial history of England (self-illustrated).
Thousands of Free Books Online
Read them online at your leisure. Or print them out on the blank side of all your junk mail..
Fat Tire
Fat Tire Ale is one of my favorite beers, unfortunately unavailable in Minnesota due to bizarre laws for microbreweries (i.e. real beer) lobbied into place by Coors, Miller, and Budweiser to cut down on national competition. At any rate, I dig the Quicktime movies on this site of their commercial campaign.
Car Ribbons
So you've seen those magnetic 'ribbons' most frequently seen on giant gas guzzling SUV's saying Support Our Troops (to which I always want to add - so that your ugly street behemoth doesn't run out of gas). Anyway - they always piss me off because what American doesn't support the troops - it's not the troops that are in contention - it's the morons who put them in harms way without giving them adequate armor plating that I don't support. Or the fat-ass gas guzzling brain-dead suburban freaks who are the recipients from these young men and women putting themselves in harm's way because they won't buy an efficient vehicle.
So I found a ribbon that works for me. Maybe you can find one that works for you too.
So I found a ribbon that works for me. Maybe you can find one that works for you too.
Kitchen Myths
You know those things that you do in the kitchen without thinking because someone told you to a long time ago? Well some of them aren't true. For example, baking soda absorbing odors in the fridge: "This is a very clever and successful marketing ploy by the baking soda people, but the fact is that baking soda is very poor at absorbing odors. It seems to make sense, however, so lots of people have spent untold billions of dollars to put boxes of baking soda in their fridge or freezer to no effect. Activated charcoal would work much better but is expensive. Better to wrap your food and clean the fridge once in a while."
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