Poster advertising a meeting in support of the Walsall Anarchists (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you are absolute and refuse to read, learn, understand, empathize, or even speak to who or what you demonize, how will you ever learn more about you… yourself, and cultivate deeper perception, awareness, comprehension into what you believe yourself? The things that have the most value when it comes to learning and understanding are exactly the things worth exploring and are worth reading, have the most value and, more accurately, those that challenge our convictions. Before you use a simple label for anything you question or take issue with, no matter what, you must be knowledgable enough to think for yourself and come to your own conclusion. Trust no one’s voice but your own, but before you judge others, make sure you have clean hands and use a purely factual challenge without any labels. It doesn’t matter if it is political, social, cultural or religious… the same mandate applies. [Marc Gilbert-Widmann January 29, 2014]
The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you’ll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you’ll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, will make your life yours. And everything, everything, will be on it.
Neil deGrasse Tyson at The Amazing Meeting 6. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview—not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it. The really striking thing is that it would not take much effort to establish validity in most of these cases… but people prefer reassurance to research.”
? Neil deGrasse Tyson
Part of Image:Planetary society.jpg Original caption: “Founding of the Planetary Society Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman, the founders of The Planetary Society at the time of signing the papers formally incorporating the organization. The fourth person is Harry Ashmore, an advisor, who greatly helped in the founding of the Society. Ashmore was a Pulitizer Prize winning journalist and leader in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
Cover via Amazon
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
— Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
“A fight is going on inside me,” said an old man to his son. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you.”
The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Which wolf will win?”
Quote of the Day (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “I am never alone”
I am never alone wherever I am. The air itself supplies me with a century of love. When I breathe in, I am breathing in the laughter, tears, victories, passions, thoughts, memories, existence, joys, moments, and the hues of the sunlight on many tones of skin; I am breathing in the same air that was exhaled by many before me. The air that bore them life. And so how can I ever say that I am alone?
~ C. Joybell
<from Goodreads.com>
About this author:
C. JoyBell C. is best known for her love of cake, especially that of the red velvet nature. She is also known for her poetry, prose, novel-writing and is famed for her philosophical writings and speeches, many of which have been quoted in various books by different authors and can also be appreciated as incorporated by many artists into their diverse pieces. Moreover, there are those who simply want to look at her pictures! She will say to you “Céad míle fáilte!” (A hundred thousand welcomes!) and “A viaxe continúa!” (The journey continues!)
Can you say I am never alone and mean it at the same time?
I am never alone with a slice of a 4-layer red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“We cannot expect to grow if we are too afraid or unwilling to change and face challenges. When we exit our everyday, mundane lifestyles to do something different we can experience growth, undiscovered strength, and new abilities within ourselves.”
? Ashley Ormon
I just joined something called the Internet Defense League — and I’m hoping you will, too. I joined because it’s important to stand up against the powerful industries that are tyring hard to lock down the net. Remember SOPA and PIPA? The people who wrote them are working on more bills to censor the internet, spy on users, chill innovation and generally wreak havoc with the web.
The Internet Blackout helped kill SOPA/PIPA with nothing more than websites and individuals working together to broadcast messages and actions. The Internet Defense League uses the tactics of the Blackout, but supercharged and ready to take on anything that corrupt congresspeople and big business can throw at us.
The Internet Defense League works like this: organizers and members monitor Congress and industry for threats to internet freedom. When there’s a grave threat or unmissable opportunity, people use their websites, Twitter, Facebook or other social network accounts to display action messages about the threat and tools for taking action. When we rise up together, we’ll be impossible to ignore.
With SOPA and PIPA, internet users found a new ability to take a stand together when our rights are at stake. Our powerful protest surprised everyone, especially the congresspeople and lobbyists who wrote the bills. We made them see the internet in a new light, but they still don’t know what we’re really capable of. The next time internet freedom is threatened, we will be able to use the League to come out even stronger than we did last fall.
The Internet Defense League can be the strongest network in the fight for internet freedom – but it will only work if large numbers of people get on board. It would be great to have you standing with us.
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