The New Normal

The phrase finisher....

Whatever doesn't kill you...

• will let you live longer
• gives you something to think about when alone
• can only haunt your nightmares
• reminds you of priorities
• updates your mental bucket-list
• could encourage you to greatness
• jolts you back to reality
• adjusts your mode of thinking
• can stall progress momentarily
• can leave a nasty scar and/or rash
• will give you tales to tell when inebriated
• can alter your existence

A stitch in time...

• saves ninety nine
• keeps you in your prime
• brings the rest in line
• supports design
• fights decline
• turns water to wine
• adds lemon to lime
• sets off a mine
• tips with a dime
• smells like pine
• overthrows a swine
• talks like a mime
• doesn't drink wine
• makes up a stupid rhyme

People in Glass houses...

• are friends with gnomes
• don't live near piles of stones
• obliviously don't value privacy*
• should not detonate explosives
• sleep with the television on
• need to be mindful of nakedness
• can grow their own herbs and vegetables
• don't want to be alone or listen to Billy Joel
• see you before you ring the doorbell or knock
• hopefully have a nice view of an ocean or wildlife
• might wish to invest in double-glazing to prevent heat loss
• would be absolutely sick and tired of the premise of this post by now

*unless it's tinted glass

OMG WTF?

Is it just me, or is there a shit-load of random natural (or otherwise) disasters going on in recent times?

Or is it just that we have (excessively) more media, cameras and 24 'news' channels to draw our attention to such events?

Open for anyone to answer, thanks.

Stolen Extract

No Planet Is An Island

No Thought Is Isolated

No Thing Is Unconnected

I found this text very interesting, on the difference/relationship between 'Aloneness' and 'Loneliness'. Something to think about?

There is a fundamental difference between being lonely and being alone. Throughout the history of mankind, what we find is that excessive self-concern, self-occupation, is the outstanding feature of human behavior. Human life is anything but a matter of certainty, fulfillment, plenty. On the contrary, life is like an obstacle race.

We can see that our whole activity is self-centered. We keep thinking about ourselves endlessly: we must improve ourselves; we want a better job; we must fulfill ourselves; we want a better relationship; we want to achieve enlightenment. Our self-concern motivates all our activities. It is this pre-occupation with the self and rivalry with the 'other', which brings about isolation and loneliness. We try to escape from it in various ways, but such strategies cannot succeed.

When one is conforming to a pattern - religious, psychological or even self-imposed - there is bound to be a contradiction between 'what-is' and the pattern. The self becomes supremely important with the idea of self-improvement. One needs tremendous energy to see this situation in its truth and entirety. It demands utter honesty to recognize that 'what-should-be' is an avoidance from the actuality of 'what-is'.

It is only the urgency to see the truth that can make us accept the 'what-is' in the present moment. One needs to be completely alone in this investigation. The accumulation of conceptual knowledge must be totally set aside. And such aloneness certainly does not mean isolation: it does not mean building a wall around oneself. On the contrary, this means one is not alone but represents all humanity, a universal brotherhood, regarding all separate selves as merely instruments through which the Primal Energy - Consciousness - functions and brings about, at any moment, precisely that which is supposed to happen according to a Cosmic Law.

It is only such an awakening of Divine Intelligence, which ends selfishness - the cause of loneliness of the self.

NOTE: Reproduced without permission from The One in the Mirror: See What You Truly Are! By Ramesh S. Balsekar

Twisted by Seismic Activity Beyond Our Control

After the clean up

Not all bodies found

All feelings are normal

Not knowing how to react

From recovery to demolition

Tilted buildings in the distance

Others are fare worse off than us

complaining is a luxury the least affected

Playing pick up sticks with bookcases

Post traumatic stress Disorder

Unavailability of basic services

Fear of another earthquake

Glass on the carpet

Broken infrastructure

Deserted city

Soldiers guarding posts

Bridges Down

Traffic congestion

Survivor guilt

Everything changed forever

More billionaires than ever

Charlie Sheen is a disaster

I couldn't have done anything to stop it

would it be safer in space

the end of discovery

Glad I am not in Libya

I wish I had someone to blame

but it wouldn't change a thing

chit chat achieved

Another aftershock

At least I have Angel Hair

Inconceivable

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

Does an electron have a substructure?

Does anyone know/care?

The Placebo Effect

research about the above

If there's a God up in the air
Someone looking over everyone
At least you got something to fall back on

(-Compliments, Band of Horses)

The apocalypse might not all come at once,

it may come as a series of smaller armageddons

to soften us up first.

waves of mutilation

etc...

Lucky To Be Alive

...we all are! But don't usually remember on a regular basis.

Post-Quake Playlist:

You Can't Go Home Again - DJ Shadow

The End of Things - Bachelorette

(Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon

Haiti - Arcade Fire

I Woke up today - Port O'Brien

End Of The world - Shocking Pinks

The Funeral - Band of Horses

Serious As Your Life - Four Tet

Rock steady - Aretha Franklin

Guess I'm Doing Fine - Beck

Optimistic - Radiohead

Rockin In The Free World - Neil Young

Cleanup Time - John Lennon