This animated short was created by Eugen Erhan. He has created a 3D journey in a world of paradox and illusion. A must-see for fans of M.C. Escher.
The video follows a paper character's journey through a world that isn't always as it appears. The soundtrack, "Do You Dream of Me" by Tiamat, is an excellent choice for this work.
Compassion and the Individual
Whether people are beautiful and friendly or unattractive and disruptive, ultimately they are human beings, just like oneself. Like oneself, they want happiness and do not want suffering. Furthermore, their right to overcome suffering and be happy is equal to one's own. ...When you recognize that all beings are equal in both their desire for happiness and their right to obtain it, you automatically feel empathy and closeness for them.
Through accustoming your mind to this sense of universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems. Nor is this wish selective; it applies equally to all.
~ The Dalai Lama, Compassion for the Individual
Demolishing Anger’s Walls
Resentment
Anger, when channeled into the pursuit of change, can be a useful tool in our emotional palette. Anger is experienced by most people, some more than others. It is when anger has no outlet and morphs into resentment that it carries with it the potential to cause great turmoil. Allowing us to assign blame for the pain we are feeling, thereby easing it, resentment tends to smolder relentlessly just below the surface of our awareness, eroding our peace of mind. The target of our resentment grows ever more wicked in our minds and we rue the day we first encountered them. But resentment is merely another hue on the emotional palette and therefore within the realm of our conscious control. We can choose to let go of our resentment and to move on with our lives, no matter how painful the event that incited it.
Hanging onto resentment in our hearts does not serve us in any way. Successfully divesting ourselves of resentful feelings can be difficult, however, because doing so forces us to mentally and emotionally confront the original source of anger. When we cease assigning blame, we realize that our need to hold someone or something responsible for our feelings has harmed us. We thought we were coping with our hurt when in fact we were holding onto that hurt with a vice grip. To release resentment, we must shift our attention from those we resent back toward ourselves by thinking of our own needs. Performing a short ceremony can help you quell resentful feelings by giving tangible form to your emotions. You may want to write down your feelings and then burn the paper and close your ceremony by wishing them well. When you can find compassion in your heart, you know you are on your way to healing.
Free of resentment, we have much more energy and attention to devote to our personal development. We can fill the spaces it left behind with unconditional acceptance and joy. And, as a result of our subsequent freedom from resentment, blessings can once again enter our lives as the walls we built to contain our anger have been demolished.
Another controversy swirling around Dan Rather? Maybe. But this time, his insights into the future of journalism—and what, in fact, is real news—are most timely. The hoopla began after Rather’s interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Monday, in which he said that CBS is “dumbing down and tarting up” its evening news broadcast with Katie Couric. Rather asserted that the network—not the “nice” Katie Couric, made the mistake—“to try to bring the ‘Today Show’ ethos to the ‘Evening News…’ in hopes of attracting a younger audience.” Newspapers and bloggers picked up on the story, which spread far and wide on the Web.
Ann Althouse, a blogger and University of Wisconsin law professor, charged that “sexism” was at the heart of Rather’s comments:
“I don’t like the dumbing down of the news, but I see…feminist issues. Is Rather insinuating that having a ‘female’ newscaster is part of the process of ‘tarting up’ the news? I know he doesn’t precisely make that connection, but, to me, it’s just glaring that the word ‘tart’means ‘prostitute.’ How on earth does it matter what ‘time’ the news is on? If something is wrong for the evening news, why isn’t it just as wrong for the morning news? I think what is unstated is that only women are watching those morning ‘shows’, so the standards are lower. We don’t even call the evening news a “show,” do we? It’s not a ‘show,’ it’s a ‘program!’”
In response, Rather differentiates between substantive, serious nightly newscasts and the lighter, feel-good morning shows featuring gardening tips, summer salad recipes, and Sopranos wrap-ups.
But Leslie Moonves, CBS’s CEO, agreed with Althouse, calling Rather’s comments “sexist” and partly to blame for Couric’s lackluster ratings (in fact, a twenty-year low for CBS Evening News). “I’m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don’t want news from a woman was startling,” Moonves said.
In response to Moonves’ criticism, Rather appeared on FOX News to defend his earlier remarks. He immediately went on the offensive to discredit Moonves for his conflict of interest as CBS’s chief and entertainment guru. A telling exchange with host David Asman:
“RATHER: He [Moonves] is head of CBS News.
ASMAN: He’s head of the whole thing...
RATHER: Yes.
ASMAN: ... both entertainment and news. And you think the lines between the two are disappearing?
RATHER: I think they have disappeared.”
A powerful statement from a veteran newsman. Rather continued, “They [network directors] don’t know what hard news is, the top corporate leadership. They know about entertainment, but they don’t know about news.”
Rather also released a statement through HDNet, clarifying his criticism of CBS:“This is not about Katie Couric. Never has been. It has NOTHING to do with gender. I find it disappointing and insidious that Les Moonves would try to mask the real point with that line of attack. Plenty of women have made incredible sacrifices in the name of hard news. Just look at the record of CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier for one. This is not about gender, this is about leadership at the very top of CBS. They started weakening the role of hard news at the network long before Katie arrived there. Les Moonves started talking about “naked news” -- a comment that should live in infamy. He talked about ‘blowing up’ CBS News and suggested that the landmark journalistic work of Edward R. Murrow should be de-emphasized. Moonves has weakened the News Division at CBS News since he took over.”
"Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others."
~ Harriet Lerner
Healing relationships often requires healing ourselves.
Wanting intimacy with our partner often means working through our own issues, difficulties, and insecurities, for as we become whole, our relationships can blossom.
Everyday Zen
Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not.
And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.
I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field...
So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud cover to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it's anything but safe. But we don't like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality.
The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal searchlight: seeing things as they are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.
~ Charlotte Joko Beck
Philosopher, poet and friend
Jürgen Habermas writes an obiturary for American philosopher Richard Rorty
The American philosopher Richard Rorty passed away on Friday. Rorty, whose work ranges over an unusually broad intellectual terrain, was the author of many works, including "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979), "Consequences of Pragmatism" (1982), and "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989).
Richard Rorty. Photo: Suhrkamp Verlag
I received the news in an email almost exactly a year ago. As so often in recent years, Rorty voiced his resignation at the "war president" Bush, whose policies deeply aggrieved him, the patriot who had always sought to "achieve" his country. After three or four paragraphs of sarcastic analysis came the unexpected sentence: " Alas, I have come down with the same disease that killed Derrida." As if to attenuate the reader's shock, he added in jest that his daughter felt this kind of cancer must come from "reading too much Heidegger."
Three and a half decades ago, Richard Rorty loosened himself from the corset of a profession whose conventions had become too narrow - not to elude the discipline of analytic thinking, but to take philosophy along untrodden paths. Rorty had a masterful command of the handicraft of our profession. In duels with the best among his peers, with Donald Davidson, Hillary Putnam or Daniel Dennett, he was a constant source of the subtlest, most sophisticated arguments. But he never forgot that philosophy - above and beyond objections by colleagues - mustn't ignore the problems posed by life as we live it.
Among contemporary philosophers, I know of none who equalled Rorty in confronting his colleagues - and not only them - over the decades with new perspectives, new insights and new formulations. This awe-inspiring creativity owes much to the Romantic spirit of the poet who no longer concealed himself behind the academic philosopher. And it owes much to the unforgettable rhetorical skill and flawless prose of a writer who was always ready to shock readers with unaccustomed strategies of representation, unexpected oppositional concepts and new vocabularies - one of Rorty's favourite terms. Rorty's talent as an essayist spanned the range from Friedrich Schlegel to Surrealism.
The irony and passion, the playful and polemical tone of an intellectual who revolutionised our modes of thinking and influenced people throughout the world point to a robust temperament. But this impression doesn't do justice to the gentle nature of a man who was often shy and withdrawn - and always sensitive to others.
One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New Jersey, and breathed in the stunning odour of the orchids. Around the same time he discovered a fascinating book at the home of his leftist parents, defending Leon Trotsky against Stalin. This was the origin of the vision that the young Rorty took with him to college: philosophy is there to reconcile the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth. Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the "holy", the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: "My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law."
Steroids Scandal Hits Major League Superheroes
Commentary by Lore Sjöberg
06.13.07 | 2:00 AMMay 8, 2007, Metropolis
The Justice League of America responded today to the accusations of doping leveled by former member The Atom's new tell-all book, Small-Time Justice. In it, the diminutive crime fighter accuses his fellow superheroes of various indiscretions and infidelities, but the most controversial chapter in the book deals with steroid abuse. While he stops short of naming names, the context makes it clear to which leaguer he's referring.
"Now ask yourself," he writes. "How does a guy with absolutely no superhuman abilities get to hang out with the most powerful beings in the solar system? When you're busy learning science and picking up detective skills and custom-building cars and special devices, how are you going to find the time to hit the gym as hard as you need to even sit at the same table with Superman and Wonder Woman? Isn't it possible that maybe you're going to look for a little outside help, maybe of a chemical nature?"
The Justice League categorically denied these accusations. Superman, speaking for the group, suggested that The Atom was suffering from an inferiority complex and lashing out. "I hate to speak ill of any fellow crime fighter," said the godlike Kryptonian. "But you have to understand that when a person's powers are 'being smaller than anyone else,' that person is going to end up feeling pretty inferior to those who have something to contribute. This is nothing more than an attempt to raise his own stature, if you will, by diminishing others."
The press conference was then interrupted by the attack of a dozen of Brainiac's death bots.
May 22, 2007, Metropolis
Their hand forced by a wave of bad publicity and brutal congressional hearings, the Justice League of America today agreed to institute steroid testing and other drug testing for all members. At a press conference, the entire league stood behind Superman as he announced the new policy.
"While we have nothing but confidence in our members, and do not suspect any of them of wrongdoing, we understand the public interest in being sure that the nation's, and indeed the planet's, guardians are not involved in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, except for the Gingo juice that gives Elongated Man his powers. Seriously, 'Gingo juice'?
"Accordingly, each member of the league will be subject to random, mandatory drug testing. Any member found using steroids, human growth hormone, Martian growth hormone or similar substances will be given a lifetime ban from the league, and their Rapscallions Brought In stats will be given an asterisk in the record books.
"I'm going to have to expose myself to Kryptonite just to get a blood sample," the deific visitor from the planet Krypton said. "I hope you're happy. It hurts."
June 13, 2007, Metropolis
In a surprise development in the ongoing Justice League drug controversy, the league announced the expulsion of founding member Green Lantern for steroid use. While the league refused to speak to the press, instead announcing the decision in a press release, Green Lantern himself spoke to reporters outside league headquarters.
"You have to understand here," he said, visibly weary from the ordeal. "The rest of the guys, they're always running and punching and lifting things. They get a workout just by doing their jobs. Me, what do I do? I think. I just hover there and whatever I think of, my power ring does. I may be flying around, but I have the superhero equivalent of a desk job. If I didn't watch my figure, I'd end up putting on so much weight I'd have to change my name to the Green Lighthouse. Given a choice between spending half my time in the gym and actually, you know, saving the world, yeah, I did a few 'roids."
All other members of the league, including the Batman, have come out clean in their tests, although it was discovered that what Elongated Man was calling "Gingo juice" is actually 180-proof grain alcohol, and has nothing to do with his powers. He is currently in rehab.
