posted August 05, 2009 10:40 PM            

You look thinner.
You look handsome.
You look different.

posted August 18, 2009 09:16 AM            

hey, once you asked me if i feared the gods like the boddhisatvas do, and i told you that i would read the peace you had posted and let you know; do you remember?
well, i read it, and i do fear the gods like boddisatvas

posted August 18, 2009 05:59 PM            

i am not going back there because i don't want to get involved in the actual discussion anymore. obviously we speak different languages and that is just a fact of life!

but i urge you to look at the possibility that the only person you can change is yourself, and that doing so changes the world... i think ghandi said that!

posted August 18, 2009 06:31 PM              

katatonic,

I appreciate your effort. We continue to disagree. My views are contraversial, but I'll continue to share them, even if people think I'm being political and tryign to change things. Primarily, I am just voicing my perspective, like a bird signing on a tree. If it changes things, that is great. If not, no matter. I'll go on singing my song. I do think it is a fatalistic philosophy, to think that you can't change anyone (but yourself). We all influence one another in all sorts of ways all the time. Its a shame that many of the people who would be the best influences thwart themselves (and each other) with philosophies that turn all their energies inward on themselves. Meanwhile, so many people who are speaking up and exerting influence are not worthy of the influence they exert. Its unfortuneate. Bottom line, you can make a difference. Your voice is powerful, and every time you speak up on behalf of oppressed peoples, and against the ones who profit from their oppression, or from indifference to their oppression, you make a difference. You influence people, just as you've been influenced by the fatalistic philosophy so popular among New Age thinkers. Well, I've worked on myself for a long time, questioning, seeking, thinking... And though I will always have more work to do on myself, I think I already have good and important things to say, and it is time to speak up. I cannot wait around until I am perfect, or until I'm tactful enough to change people without stirring them up, before I speak. I'll be dead long before that happens. I can change people. I do change people. I have changed people. And not just by living by example, -- unless, like me, you consider my outspokenness, and my truthfulness, as examples in themselves. I have influenced people to stop eating meat, or to eat less meat. As I see it, I'm already saving lives. How about you? Has all your inner work gotten you to the point where you are saving lives with the power of your voice? Or are you still wasting your breath teaching prophets to silence themselves? Don't be taught to silence yourself. Your voice does make a difference. So keep protesting. And don't protest the protesters. Where's the sense in that? Protest the real offenders; the bureacrats, the fatcats, the materialists, the meat-eaters and defenders of meat-eaters. See where the real abuses and offenses are, and, if you do nothing else, speak out against them. Its the least you can do.

quote:

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"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Gandhi

---

I am. I wish to see the world speaking as I do, so I am speaking as I do. I wish to see the world promoting the values I promote, and so I promote them. I wish to see the world reasoning, so I reason with people. I wish to see the world honest, so I am honest with people. I like to see the world discouraging the accumulation of mass private wealth, so I discourage mass private wealth. I like to see the world vegan and arguing in favor of vegan ideals, so I try to be vegan and to argue for vegan ideals. I am the change I wish to see in the world. Gandhi was a great speaker, capable of persuading, organizing and leading multitudes, not just by his behavior (which he was not alone in practicing), but by his intellect and eloquence. Not only by what he practiced, but by what he preached, -- not only by what he abstained from, but by what he openly criticized -- he proved himself to be a great man and a great role model for me. I quote him often and take many of his words to heart.

posted August 18, 2009 06:59 PM            

i dont want to hurt you, i honestly say that in peace, and i say that because seeing who you are, and knowing who i am and where i am myself, i know that you can do something much greater than i can in this lifetime. and i read somewhere that the liberation of one is the liberation of all.

i wish i would have been able to phrase my advice with more explicit love but what can i do with an asteroid midas opposing my sun by 0*12' ?

posted August 18, 2009 06:59 PM              

quote:

---

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”

"In a progressive society, measures must always be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment."

"It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity."

"Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men."

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."

“I can combine the greatest love with the greatest opposition to wrong.”

"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."

"Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress."

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."

"I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another."

"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."

"I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace."

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

"In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place."

"I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality."

"Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth."

"Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being."

"Those who know how to think need no teachers."

~ Mahatma Gandhi

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posted August 18, 2009 07:21 PM              

We're all prophets,
or, we're all capable
of being prophets,
at times.

Especially the firey ones, lol.

No one is perfect.
If you await a perfect prophet,
you will never meet a prophet.

If humility is so necessary to you,
then, for you, whenever I am proud,
I have ceased to be prophetic.

But can you not see the prophet
that is in me, when I am humble?

It is said that we become enlightened
from one moment to the next,
but we miss it.

And Jaspers writes,
"The instant you think you are pure,
you become impure."

But there are moments of prophecy,
and moments when we are prophets.
Pure, and not self-conscious.

But, if a one-eyed man is king,
in the land of the blind....

Then a vegan is a prophet,
in the land of meat-eaters.

lol

Its all relative.

Although, I think
the emphasis on humility
has become excessive.

Nearly every prophet
I can think of
has exhibited exceptional confidence,
and often referred to him/herself
as a prophet.

Most alleged prophets go so far
as to insist that they are
speaking for God;
with the voice of God.

Think about it.

I've not gone so far.
Perhaps I am more humble
than most prophets.

Anyway,
I think you see
where I'm coming from.

posted August 18, 2009 09:19 PM            

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress."

posted August 25, 2009 04:54 AM            

When a cow is a thrust
the ants are eating
when blades of grass fly
the wind stops blowing
and the organs begin to work
...and I'm the f-cking jerk.

posted August 25, 2009 05:06 AM            

quote:

---

You know the poem I just posted recently in Yellow wax, about "just another flutter?"

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I just commented on that poem Ms Wind. What an absolute blinder. Fantastic.