The Signature Thread

[Avatar]

One of the problems with posts about other Members' signatures is that they become meaningless as soon as the signature changes.

I noticed WayFriends new signature today, and felt the need to comment on it. Rather than just choose some random thread where he'd posted to mention it, I decided to start a thread. This way, the best signatures can be saved for posterity (or the thread can slide slowly down into back-page oblivion ).

Anyway, without further ado, here is the signature of WayFriends that really caught my eye today, perhaps for obvious reasons:

Remember the Code:
Do not retort where replying is enough;
do not scoff where retorting is enough;
do not lambast where scoffing is enough;
and call not names where lambasting is enough;
the greatest Watcher is one who does not need to diss.

Great sig WayFriend.

--Avatar

[The Leper Fairy]

I saw that too but didn't know where to comment on it! It's great

[dlbpharmd]

I noticed this earlier today as well. Very clever!

[MsMary]

Funny you should mention signatures, since I just changed mine.

[Edge]

One of my all-time favourite sigs is from Felonius on the IBDoF:

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

I think that's the most Zen thing I've ever seen in my life.

[wayfriend]

Great sig WayFriend.

(Thanks. It's sort of my response to things herein lately.)
(I wish I was more prone to random acts of kindness, such as this. I should try to learn from you, Av.)

[onewyteduck]

Beautiful Wayfriend, just beautiful!

[Avatar]

I wish I was more prone to random acts of kindness, such as this. I should try to learn from you, Av.

Whoa! Watch out. I'm not used to being a role-model, and I have enough ego problems as it is.

Seriously though, it is a great one, and something we'd all do well to remember.

And while I'm here, let me mention two others that have caught my eye recently:

SafetyJedi's:

to be yourself, in a world that is trying to make you everyone else, means to fight the hardest fight any human being has ever fought, and never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings

And Lord Mhoram's new one:

Each of us is a God. Each of us knows all. We need only open our minds to hear our own wisdom.
-the Buddha

Which reminds of this little extract from The Prophet:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

(I always liked your old one too Lord Mhoram, the one about it being well that war is so terrible.)

--A

[Lord Mhoram]

Avatar,

Thank you. I like my Buddha one (nice incorporation of Gibran btw ). My old one was from Gen. Robert E. Lee: "It is well that war is so terrible or we should grow too fond of it."

[Avatar]

Wasn't it somebody in that same time period, (maybe even him?) who said something about studying war so that their children could study science, and their grandchildren could study poetry?

Pity that neither statement has been particularly accurate.

--Avatar

[ur-bane]

Very nice sig, Wayfriend. Well thought out, and applicable as well!

[I'm Murrin]

Yes, all the ones mentioned are pretty good.

[Lord Mhoram]

Avatar,

"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain." - President John Adams

^Is that the quote you are referring to? If so, President Adams was before General Lee. Still a nice quote though.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, Wayfriend, that really is a very well-crafted sig!

When they up the limit to a thousand or so characters, I'll be switching these two back and forth, depending on whether I'm in a half-full or half-empty mood.

I've been out here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision. It's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning, it's the moving forward. I was so fixated on that flying cow that, when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so that I could see all the other possibilities....... I think Kierkegard said it oh so well: “The self is only that which it’s in the process of becoming.” Art? Same thing. James Joyce had something to say about it too: “Welcome oh life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscious of my race.” We’re here today to fling something that bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness of our community......... The thing I learned folks, this is absolutely key: It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself. -- Chris Stevens from Northern Exposure

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Blood stain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion, bear children, hellbound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach.

[Iryssa]

Those are great, Fist!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if I've got the right book on my signature? I'm fairly sure I do, but I'm not positive.

[danlo]

I think that might be right...which book is my sig from?

[Avatar]

Avatar,

"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain." - President John Adams

^Is that the quote you are referring to? If so, President Adams was before General Lee. Still a nice quote though.

Yeah, that was the one, although I think I've only ever seen it paraphrased. Thanks.

Danlo-- Don't know about the first bit, but isn't the second bit at least from Neverness? I must find copies of that series. (Once, many years ago, I tookRequiem out of a library, but I never got around to reading it. Since arriving here, I've regretted it. Oh well, one day.

--Avatar

[I'm Murrin]

danlo - Do I remember you saying something about it being a line in Runes, that caught your eye?

[danlo]

yes the second is from Neverness---the first is from Runes (what location is it describing tho?)

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, Iryssa, yours is from TWL.

Maybe I'd just do the full quote of what I have now:

-Oh, ho, listen, Man, and we'll tell you everything! Do you hear the waves whispering the secret? We know you know, Man. The secret of life is just sheer joy, and joy is everywhere. Joy is what we were made for. It is in the rush of the nighttime surf and in the beach rocks and in the salt and the air and in the water we breathe and deep, deep within the blood. And the sifting ocean sands and the wriggling silverfish and the hooded greens of the shallows and the purple deeps and in the oyster's crusty shell and the pink reefs and even in the muck of the ocean's floor, joy, joy, joy!