Friday 19 June 2009

Symbol of Freedom, Flower of Hope

Symbol of Freedom, Flower of Hope, who after years of house arrest now sits in jail... Today is the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi... who does all that she can do, and never loses heart, even when she can do nothing. So what can we do? We do what we can do, my friends. We don't lose heart. Though we can do nothing.
http://www.64forsuu.org

Instructions (tongue-in-cheek) on how to do nothing:

Friday 12 June 2009

Motorway Across the Universe

 
"Here is a problem for you," Nafurti said, producing the above picture of the universe. "On the left, you have the Earth, then the motorway that runs across the universe and on the right the planetary objects and the Sun. As you can see the motorway goes almost completely across the universe and the gap is too small for the planets to pass through. So the problem is how to move the planets across and settle them on the Earth, allowing for making the Earth smaller in the process."

I realize immediately that being allowed to make the Earth smaller means we can convert some of the mass of the Earth into energy and use that energy to perform the feat.

"How about moving the planets across the motorway?" I suggested.

But this is a two-dimensional model of the universe... so to take something "over" would involve taking it out of the universe, she explained.

"How about populating the Earth with humans," I suggest next, "The destructive power of humans will blow apart the motorway and the way will then be clear!"

At this, she was most displeased. Frowning, she explained "That will create debris all over the place which will be even harder to avoid and will make your problem much more difficult."

And then I had a third idea... "Complete the motorway, and then with tremendous force like a rocket taking off from its launch site, the left side of the universe must take off from the right, separating itself from it, and then double itself back and re-join itself to the right side."

"That's very good!" she said. "So how are you going to do the first of those two in practice, the splitting?"

I have no idea actually... and then I wake up.


And then there's still the second problem of doubling back and re-connecting...

I'll have to figure all that out in due course, but in the meantime I'll concentrate on completing that motorway. It might be a motorway of foolishness http://jamintoo.multiply.com/video/item/107/107 from which one might take off with complete freedom and nothing to lose, but in order to take it, in order to "let go" of something, a subjective attachment of any kind whatever it might be that holds us back, requires first for that thing to complete itself.

Don't you think?

Monday 8 June 2009

Gall & Balavoine


Nothing to Lose
 

(Both)
They take us for lunatics,
What must they think of us
We don't care
We don't care at all
We don't care about being poor
We like each other even more
When we have nothing to lose
When we have nothing to lose.

(Balavoine)
If you leave with me
People will show you the finger

(Gall)
If I left with you
I would forget who I was

(Balavoine)
You would be beyond it all...
If I chained you to me
You would like your chains

(Gall)
I would hang to you
Like ivy to an oak.

(Both)
Far from the undergrounds of Naziland
We would find a no-man's land
Where we could live
Desperately free

They take us for lunatics,
What must they think of us
We don't care
We don't care at all
We don't care about being poor
We like each other even more
When we have nothing to lose
When we have nothing to lose.

(Balavoine)
If you leave with me
Even if you wanted to
You would never be able
To go back.

(Gall)
When you choose your life
You must live it to the limit
I would be with you
Against the whole world.

(Both)
Come with us and risk your lives
On the motorways of foolishness
So now you understand
How far one can go
When one has nothing to lose
When one has nothing to lose
When one has nothing to lose
When one has nothing to lose.