I am interested in the inner workings of your cranium. Your thought process is amazing to me. It is custom built for your unique requirements, by you, from billions of interconnected assumptions weighted for their useful outcome and consistency with each other, all forming a hierarchy of principles that you use for every action you take. You hold yourself and those with whom you entangle to a standard higher than any other entity in the universe, and when you meet that standard, you set an even higher one. You have the capacity for instantly judging whether the principles of someone else are useful to you and how you could integrate a portion of them with your own. Even more amazing, you regularly work with others, through various methods of competition, to eliminate all but the fittest system of personal values. When you are at the top of your game, you become part of something larger than yourself. You coprocess with your lover, your family and community. You may even recognize your role in the intelligence of the universe and understand it to some extent through metaphors and personifications, and the fact that nobody will ever duplicate your contribution. When you look up into the skies at night and realize the vastness of it all and understand how miniscule your part must be, it somehow makes you feel vital. In all of time and space, the hierarchy of principles upon which you live your life will never exist again. Some part of you realizes that this cannot help but benefit the whole. I realize it too and I find it beautiful.
Yello
Le scaphandre et le papillon
Battlestar Galactica
Click here to watch the Season 3 Gag Reel
•The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose
•Bonds that Make Us Free by C. Terry Warner
My heroes are the people I see on these pages who have integrity . Integrity isn't individuality. It isn't bucking the system nor is it anyone else's idea of morality. It is the basing of one's actions on a consistent framework of principles. Cultivation of integrity requires accounting and adjusting of principles when the observed effects of one's actions fail to meet goals and expectations.
Josh Wolf (2007 McCarthyism), Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalog), the Dixie Chicks (Corporate Censorship), and Shephard Fairey (Obey Giant) all demonstrated depth of character that could not be coerced by the bigoted notions of society. They remained true to their principles even when peers hated them for it, and eventually won the respect of society. While many things are required to gain another's respect , basing one's actions on another's dictates is not one of them. I may or may not agree with a person's belief system, but I have deep respect for someone who is true to principles that are consistent and sensible to him while remaining open to possibilities that he may consider to be even more useful.