"For certain maladies must be treated while the patient is kept in ignorance; knowledge of their disease has caused the death of many."

Of all the statements in Seneca's work, this was the most profound for me.

BTW: Profound statements are more often a function of the reader than the writer, which is certainly true in this case ("Who is the Buddha that makes the grass green?").

I just finished Certain to Win.  The book cover Boyd's OODA Loop as it applies to war and business.

This was my first exposure to Boyd's work.

The thing I loved about the book was that it focused on the "Implicit Guidance and Control" aspect of the loop and how to build this.

Implicit Guidance and Control is a fancy way of saying intuition.

Your team know what you want to happen without you saying a word.

You know what your team needs without them saying a word.

It comes from having a shared set of principles, common vision and "being in the trenches" together.

As I was reading this, I started to wonder about the notion of intuition in personal relationships as well.

As I think about it the most successful friendships and marriages are largely based on intuition.

This reminded me of Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop, where he talked about the death of his wife.

After she was gone, a "part" of her was still with him (At work, I call this the XXX [insert person's name] VM).

This reminded me of part of a great poem by Rumi:

Happy the moment when we are seated in the Palace, thou and I,

 

With two forms and with two figures but with one soul, thou and I.

 

The colours of the grove and the voice of the birds will bestow immortality

 

At the time when we come into the garden, thou and I

 

The stars of heaven will come to gaze upon us;

 

We shall show them the Moon itself, shall be mingled in ecstasy,

 

Joyful and secure from foolish babble, thou and I.

When I wrote the previous post, I couldn't remember who said "An armed society is a polite society".

The Google thing has a real future -- it told me right away that it was Robert Heinlein.

That made me remember one of the most beautiful quotes in the world:

"Love" is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

This is from Stranger in a Strange Land -- which if you have never read -- run to the nearest library/bookstore and get it.

I recommended The Illuminatus Trilogy to someone today. 

I once sent to copy of this book to Chris Sells once when he was finishing up his latest WPF book and he was cursing me for days because he couldn't put it down.

http://www.rawilson.com/illuminatus.shtml#drake gives you a little flavor (read the last sentence a few times).

This recommendation today reminded me of a couple of things that have been processing in the back of my mind:

1. Crowley: Liber Oz

Man has the right to live by his own law--

to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.

Man has the right to eat what he will:

to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.

Man has the right to think what he will:

to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.

Man has the right to love as he will:

Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.

2. Mao: Problems of War and Strategy

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun. According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the "omnipotence of war". Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the laboring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

3. The fact that the above are likely directly responsible for my proud lifetime membership in the NRA.

You have no idea what hell I get because of my membership in that organization, but I can normally balance it out by saying that I give money to CARE & UNICEF (which is true too).

I rediscovered the first four-track recording I ever made of me playing the electric guitar tonight.

Oh my -- just some basic 4/4 blues with (terrible) solo over top.

I forgot when I even recorded it -- so I certainly hope I have improved...

First Blues.mp3 (3.41 MB)

Someone at work commented on the number of quotes that I post on my blog.

I don't think they were commenting in kind way, but that is beside the point.

As I thought about this, two quotes entered my mind:

• Shakespeare: "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."
• Chesterton: "Hailed of my hand and by this sign alone, My eagle comes to tear me."

First, this tells me that I am guilty of using too many quotes. 

Second, this tells me that I only think in quotes.

Don't know how I missed this one...

Music Blog Zeitgeist of 2007 / The Hype Machine

Upward they look: again and yet again

Comes the loud crash of thunder, and between

A cloud that frets the firmamental plain,

With bright, red flash amid the sky serene,

The glitter of resounding arms is seen.

All tremble; but Æneas hails the sign

Long-promised. "Ask not," he exclaims, "what mean

These prodigies and portents; they are mine.

Me great Olympus calls; I hear the voice divine.

The Aeneid of Virgil

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. --- Buddha

amidabuddha.org - Daily Meditation

Get Spook Country.

Read chapter 20; it ends with the above quote.

Read chapter 29:

Not just hot [Szechuan], but correctly, expertly seasoned.  Hot like when they brought you a plate of lemon slices, to suck on as needed, to partially neutralize the burn.  It has been a long time since Milgrim had had food like that.  It had been a long time since he'd eaten a meal that had provided any memorable pleasure at all.  The Chinese he was most familiar with these days was along the lines of the stepped-on Cantonese they brought him at the laundry on Lafayette, but just now he was recalling that sensation, strangely delightful, of drinking cold water on top of serious pepper-burn -- how the water filled your mouth entirely, but somehow without touching it, like a molecule-thick silver membrane of Chinese antimatter, like a spell, some magic insulation.

I love William Gibson.