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The interview: Robert Pirsig

November 24, 2006 / Klint Finley

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence author Robert Pirsig in what he claims to be his final interview:

The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain.

Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food.

Traditional scientific method has always been, at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.

Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organise themselves into a professor of chemistry? What’s the motive?

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

Full Story: the Guardian.

I found this interesting, especially since I just rediscovered my copy of T.A.Z., by Hakim Bey. I think we often neglect to remember that it only takes a wee bit of energy to make a significant change in the so-called Black Iron Prison around us. Is it really that hard?

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice

November 8, 2006 / Fell

Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.

continued via the New York Times

Just fyi, ~~Canada~~ Alberta is willing to trade Toronto for New York. In fact, we’ll give you most of Ontario in exchange…

Five things likely to make you happier in the short term

November 3, 2006 / Klint Finley

1. Go out for a walk
2. Do something fun that you haven’t done in a long time
3. Do something creative
4. Complete some minor chore that you’ve been avoiding
5. Get in contact with an old friend or acquaintance you haven’t seen for a while

Or do your favorite banishing ritual 😉

Full Story: Paul’s Tips.

(via Lifehacker).

Channel Null: Take ‘Em Out to the Woodshed

June 15, 2006 / Klint Finley

Sort of a nickel guide to demonology:

By our nature, our auras attract things we want and need. Force animates us and intention guides our minds to manipulate us such that we move towards what we seek; those things we invoke early and often will show up, in the manner they can. But we suffer from ego-scaffolding that burdens us down with a whole complex of “memes.” And a great number of them lead to all sorts of contradiction and negatives-around-which we form identities. Thought processes and behavior patterns begin to take on a life of their own, and for all intents and purposes, may as well be demonic in nature. Whether they exist inside or outside of matters little. Our subject and object collapse such that these entities dwell on the limit-point of self-definition. And a lot of them revolve around statements like “I don’t really need to be wealthy” or “I am poor.”

Comment forthcoming.

Full Story: Dark Science and Infernal Art.

The Self-Help and Actualization Movement has become an $8.5-billion-a-year business

June 5, 2006 / Klint Finley

From Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer:

The “over and over” part is the key to understanding the “why” of what investigative journalist Steve Salerno calls the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (SHAM). In his recent book Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (Crown Publishing Group, 2005), he explains how the talks and tapes offer a momentary boost of inspiration that fades after a few weeks, turning buyers into repeat customers. While Salerno was a self-help book editor for Rodale Press (whose motto at the time was “to show people how they can use the power of their bodies and minds to make their lives better”), extensive market surveys revealed that “the most likely customer for a book on any given topic was someone who had bought a similar book within the preceding eighteen months.” The irony of “the eighteen-month rule” for this genre, Salerno says, is this: “If what we sold worked, one would expect lives to improve. One would not expect people to need further help from us–at least not in that same problem area, and certainly not time and time again.”

Surrounding SHAM is a bulletproof shield: if your life does not get better, it is your fault–your thoughts were not positive enough. The solution? More of the same self-help–or at least the same message repackaged into new products. Consider the multiple permutations of John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus–Mars and Venus Together Forever, Mars and Venus in the Bedroom, The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution–not to mention the Mars and Venus board game, Broadway play and Club Med getaway.

Full Story: Scientific American: SHAM Scam

(via 43 Folders).

Occult Design: the delusion of happiness

May 11, 2006 / Klint Finley

I disagree with the notion that they are happy or better off because of their accidents. It was the event which led them to a shift in perception, which leads them to new focuses ? more often, directing more time to instrospection and following the paths in their life that lead them to happiness.

Full Story: Occult Design.

So what do you have to do to find happiness?

February 19, 2006 / Klint Finley

Long article on happiness science:

One thing makes a striking difference. When two American psychologists studied hundreds of students and focused on the top 10% “very happy” people, they found they spent the least time alone and the most time socialising. Psychologists know that increasing the number of social contacts a miserable person has is the best way of cheering them up. When Jean-Paul Sartre wrote “hell is other people”, the arch-pessimist of existentialist angst was wrong.

Times Online: So what do you have to do to find happiness?

(via Notes From Somewhere Bizarre)

Sex, not money, buys happiness

March 26, 2005 / Klint Finley

Increasing sex frequency from once a month to at least once a week provides as much happiness as a $50,000-a-year raise, according to a paper titled “Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study,” submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research, one of the leading organizations in its field.

There’s more to it than that, read the whole article.

Link (via Sensual Liberation Army).

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