Questions

Post by **balon!** » Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:45 pm

Avatar wrote:Well, you will inevitably die...but the way you take to get there, and the way that it happens, is up to you and the vagaries of chance. Like weather...it depends too much on variables to ever be inevitable.

--A

but does how you get there really matter when your arrival is inevitable?

Post by **Avatar** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:38 am

Hahaha, in one sense it doesn't. In the other, how you get there is all that matters. It just depends which is important to you.

--A

Post by **balon!** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:25 am

Avatar wrote:Hahaha, in one sense it doesn't. In the other, how you get there is all that matters. It just depends which is important to you.

--A

Yup. I don't think it can go any further than that.

I will ponder another question.

Post by **balon!** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:33 pm

What do you do to calm yourself?

First I try to force my mind into perspective. For the most part, the bad things that happen aren't really that bad. Not compared to the fact that I have a place to live, a girl who finds me attractive enough to hang out with, some good Frisbee to go golfing with, and a great online community to hang on.

If that fails, I listen to some soothing music with my eyes covered, so it's dark.

If that fails, I go to sleep.

Post by **aliantha** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:21 pm

Good answers, Balon. Mine would be similar: calming breaths, and distraction.

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:39 pm

Depends what it is I need calming over I guess.

--A

Post by **Kinslaughterer** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:08 am

To calm? I find a nice cup of tea (any black, oolong, or a nice jasmine green), a comfortable seat (perhaps a hammock), and a cloudy sky seem to work nicely.

Post by **balon!** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:32 pm

What is love?

Post by **Avatar** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:11 am

In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran wrote:When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

--A

Post by **balon!** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:59 pm

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

my favorite part.

Is that a religious text?

Post by **Avatar** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:36 pm

Well...yes in a sense, but not technically.

The author was a deeply spiritual and religious man. A christian as it happens. He wrote a great many books actually, despite dying young, and despite there lack of specificity (as it were

), they are liberally sprinkled with references to god, although conspicuously lacking in the usual actual (if not supposedly intended) "style" of christianity.

In fact, I read several of his books for years without realising he was a christian, the one quoted there, The Prophet, is my favourite, both for its poetry, and for many of it's underlying "lessons."

It tells the story of a man named Almustapha, who'd lived for years in a foreign city, until finally his ship returned to take him home. When it did, he walked down to the docks, and all the people gathered to bid him farewell, spending the day asking him questions about all sorts of stuff.

Got a hypertext version that I've just mailed to you.

--A

Post by **balon!** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 4:25 am

this is beautiful stuff, Av. Thank you for sharing it with me.

All I need now is a hardcopy. Was it widely published? Barnes and Nobles, maybe?

Post by **Avatar** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:06 am

No worries.

Very widely published, and still in print today AFAIK.

--A

Post by **Vader** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:52 pm

Love is a bullet
Piercing your heart
Leaving it bleeding
And torn apart

Post by **lucimay** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:19 pm

and i'm searching for a heart
searching everyone
they say love conquers all
you can't start it like a car
you can't stop it with a gun

and so, Avatar, The Prophet is once again passed along to the next generation (balon) in much the same way as it was passed to me.

thats cool!

Post by **Avatar** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:47 pm

Sure is.

It was passed to me the same way. In fact, my copy was originally given to my mom by a student of her's, (she used to be a teacher), the year beore I was born.

--A

Post by **lucimay** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:16 pm

oh thats just cool!

Post by **Seven Words** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:59 pm

what I'd change....

Mentally...slackerhood would go.

Physically....i don't have a lot of extra pounds...just fifteen or twenty..and ALL of it is gut. Kind of weird looking, really...BIG forearms, decent upper arms...MASSIVELY developed legs (was compared by dr. doing knee surgery that I looked like Olympic Powerlifter legs),and then this pasta pouch (can't be beer belly, don't drink beer....good italian boy eats a lot of pasts, so...)

Situationally....have my own school. Can't afford the startup costs to open a martial arts school..and since my art is kind of obscure no existing school is interested. *sigh*

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 4:40 am

I wonder why the three currently active threads in here are "Greed," "Fear" and "Depression."

--A

Post by **aliantha** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:12 am

We're a negative bunch, aren't we?

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