Category: philosophy

Beware knee-jerk reactions and consider consequences.

“All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.”
— Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.)

When thinking about the year to come I started musing on my favorite poem. This is not the lateral leap it may seem as I’m afraid due to my increasing banality 🙂 it’s The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. In particular the last few lines of the 3rd verse

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

So I guess my message for 2008 is to take it as it comes, a cascade of new possibilities. Don’t get mired in trying to achieve the targets of 2007. Many will forensically analyse the past year, considering minutae like targets for physical fitness, weight, finances, love etc. A pot-pourri of concerns. Don’t be afraid to dump all these and just get on with life.

If you’re going to learn anything, learn to question everything.

People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment. – Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

I started blogging to share some ideas, reach out into the void and perhaps try to fill one. There’s lots more to say but I’ve so little time to say it anymore. That’s not really a complaint, just an observation. I wonder what the blogging demographic is. The characteristics of the most prolific and compelling bloggers. It seems they’re looking for something. Perhaps the classic human “belonging” that drives us all. I wonder if they’re lonely…
One of the things that’s bothered me over the past few months is that I no longer feel free to blog about whatever comes to mind. I think what really bugged me was the call from the local radio station about my pre-election post. It all seemed to miss the point. I felt like I’d strayed from the cosy barnyard of my personal musings into the mass media zoo, all meaning lost in the journey.