A Computer's Perspective on Moore's Law: Humans are getting more expensive at an exponential rate -- Mark Miller, http://www.caplet.com/adages.html Rule of Scarcity If it's not allocated by a market, then it's more expensive than money. -- Mark Miller, http://www.caplet.com/adages.html Spontaneous Order The Austrian Economists discovered that control and chaos were actually on the same side, and that neither is a viable way to get smart. -- Mark Miller, http://www.caplet.com/adages.html Self Reference is its Own Reward If tautologies do not convey information, mathematicians would not be surprised by them. -- Mark Miller, http://www.caplet.com/adages.html One of the things I recall about Brooks' work from grad school, was this idea: that the world is its own best model. What that means is, that instead of trying to model the world on a computer then compute what to do based on the model, you should just do stuff and then see how the input from sensors changes. By acting, you interact directly with the "model" -- the world -- and therefore you can cut down on the computation enormously. -- "Wreck", User #12457, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/25/188212&mode=thread&tid=126 A human being is part of the Whole...He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest...a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security". ALBERT EINSTEIN We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers. -- Carl Sagan " There's the conundrum of how one is supposed to , as they say, "stay young" Well I don't believe it has anything to do with young - because I know a lot of young people who have absolutely no enthusiasm for life whatsoever - and deal with it very passively..... I believe it has to more to do with staying in touch with the society in which you live and not loosing sight of those things that keep you excited" - David Bowie Software works by different economic rules than physical products: once created, the inherent cost of reproduction and distribution to the producer is nil; only when the producer seeks to control reproduction and distribution does it cost him anything. It logically follows that "distribution" costs are actually control costs. The traditional term "consumer" is not appropriate, because the end-user does not consume the product, he only uses it; accordingly, I will use the terms "producer" and "user" rather than "producer" and "consumer". -- http://www.boswa.com/buskware/buskware.html Money is the sincerest form of flattery." -Lazarus Long (Time Enough For Love - R.A.H.) "Inside every socialist is a little dictator." If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. -- George Bernard Shaw The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist. -- George Bernard Shaw Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time. -- George Bernard Shaw "Q: How do you play religious roulette ? A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets struck by lightning first." "And after six days, Jesus told him what to do. In the evening, the youth came to him, wearing a linen robe over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God...." Smith, M. (1973) _The Secret Gospel_. New York: Harper & Row. in J. Allegro (1984). _The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth_. New York: Prometheus 2*3*3*37 : The Prime Factorization of The Beast "If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Clergy." --- General Marquis De Lafayette, 1789 Born again? Hah! MY Goddess got it right the first time! --Lee Levine The church is near, but the way is icy, The tavern is far, but I will walk carefully. --- Ukranian Proverb. If you see a blind man, run up and kick him. Why should you be kinder than God? --- Old Iranian Proverb Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness. -- George Bernard Shaw When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work -- George Bernard Shaw FREELOVER? Freethinking Realist Exploring Expressive Liberty, Openness, Verity, Enlightenment, & Rationality (also, pro-love, free from state and church authorities) -- Walter Watts, on the Church of Virus mailing list Instead, what many primitivist vegas seem to want is for everyone to have to eat pest ridden, rotting vegetable matter without the aid of refrigeration, freezing, irradiation, canning, preservatives, or any other means of growing, storing or preparing food in order to reduce spoilage. Such policies can only result in increasing the amount of wilderness plowed under to feed the masses. Vegans are the problem, not the solution. -- "Michael S. Lorrey" , on the extropians mailing list Lastly, I want a competition that allows a shot by those of us who labor away our lives making micro-changes in the magnetic domains on a spinning metallic disc in a climate controlled office. -- "Spike Jones" , on the extropians mailing list The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. -Ralph W. Sockman The belief that living things are not the masterwork of some all powerful creator shouldn't blind us to the essential observation that life is incredible...magical in the sense that we do not understand more than the outline of it's functioning. If you contemplate a tree for a while, it is not necessary to believe that only God can make one in order to accept, humbly, that we cannot. Not yet, anyway. -Reed Konsler There are no such things as learning disabilities, only teaching disabilities. - Richard Bandler Ph.D. It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mostly in need of freedom; without this it goes to ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. -- Albert Einstein, 1949 I'm brute-force time travelling into the future. -- "Emlyn O'Regan" , on the extropians mailing list "If you have plenty of money, the best consequence (so they say) is that you no longer need to think about money. In the future we will have plenty of technology - and the best consequence will be that we will no longer have to think about technology. We will return with gratitude and relief to the topics that actually count." --David Gelernter ( a repeat?) Part of a healthy relationship is choosing, every day, to have the relationship. -- "Eliana" To hell with the meek, the smart have finally inherited the earth -- "Spike Jones" , on the extropians mailing list There is a common belief, akin to the '50s idea that future cars would be larger and more powerful than the models of the day, that future humans will be like us but smarter, more peaceful and wiser. In fact, just about the only safe prediction we can make is that our successors will be unlike us, probably in ways we can't comprehend. -Philip Tung Yep vengeance creates resentment and bitterness, not solutions. -- "Dr Sebby" , on the CoV mailing list Scientific truth, accepted without question or reservation, isolates an individual from constantly changing reality perceptions. Science must always be viewed as tentative. The discovery of "truth" terminates the scientific and intellectual process. -Wilson Bryan Key *"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." Daniel Webster, quoted in Hearings on the confirmation of Abe Fortas to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, p. 108 The ego is not the self. The ego is a nexus of strategies for short-term gain at the expense of group values and even long-term personal gain. -Terence McKenna Given these distinctions, it might be tempting to conclude: the ego is bad, the Higher Self is good, let's get rid of the ego. Some spiritual texts seem to advise just that. If you're planning a direct, frontal assault on the ego, I suggest you prepare for a long, protracted, perhaps never ending, internal battle. I have bruises and very little else to show from such an adversarial approach. As I examined it, there was no battle between the ego and the Higher Self (since the Higher Self doesn't seem to be into battling). The ego divided in two and fought with itself. Hence the stalemate, with the ego still running the show. -James Bryer A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the facts are, but what people think the facts are, which is truly important. There is benefit in learning what someone else's concept of the reality of the situation is, no matter how wrong it might be. -Bryan Bell Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. -Jimi Hendrix "Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one." -Calvin and Hobbes The only difference between mythology and religion is gullibility. There is only work and love in life. If we are fortunate, we love our work. If we are wise, we are willing to work at love. -Noah ben Shea If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. What wine is so sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating, as possibility! -Soren Kierkegaard Paper isn't information. It's a *picture* of information. Real information you can copy and paste. And search. -- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" , on the extropians mailing list The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. -Norman Vincent Peale I don't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -John Cage -- A theory: Women do not, snore, burp, sweat or fart. Therefore, they must bitch, or they will explode. "It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." [Steven Weinberg] I have the exact same problem. However, I've made a decision to make my health (ergo my exercize routine) a priority that (some) other things just have to submit to. It's not always easy to do when you've got an important brief that absolutely has to get filed this week, and a huge trial starting next week. But think of it this way, in 30 years time will it be more important that you crossed every "T" and dotted every "i" in that "important" brief, or that you started on a sensible exercize regimen and stuck to it? I find that taking the long view helps me to better prioritize many things in my life. Hope this helps. -- "Zero Powers" , on the extropians mailing list Everytime we work together to turn thoughts and email into palpable reality is a success. Everytime we don't repeat the mistakes of unenlightened society-- rigid control, centralization, inertia-- is a success. Every favourable mention in mass media is a resounding success. Ever unfavourable mention in mass media is a partial success. Everytime you trust a stranger or better yet, a group of strangers, and everything works out just fine without you gripping the reins white-knuckled is a success. Everytime we fight amongst ourselves instead of debating amongst ourselves is a failure. Every time someone wins a flame war instead of the flamewar being diffused with preservation of dignity all around is a failure. Everytime a promising project fades away into neglect because the person who started it felt burned out and had nobody nearby to hand it off to is a failure. Whenever lack of communication or "not made here" syndrome causes us to duplicate someone else's labor instead of adding to it is a failure. Everytime someone comes up with a concrete project, and is met with resounding indifference-- not even so much as one constructive criticism-- is a failure. -- "Alex Future Bokov" , on the extropians mailing list These problems don't seem hard to us because we're very good at them. Natural selection gave a big advantage to those who were good at spotting the pattern of a saber toothed tiger hiding in the bushes, but no advantage to those who were good at solving partial differential equations. It is not mere rhetoric to say that in an absolute sense a janitor has a more intellectually challenging job than a professor of mathematics. -- John K Clark jonkc@att.net "... People would like to think that there's somebody up there who knows what he's doing. Since we don't participate, we don't control and we don't even think about questions of vital importance. We hope somebody is paying attention who has some competence. Let's hope the ship has a captain, in other words, since we're not taking part in what's going on... It is an important feature of the ideological system to impose on people the feeling that they really are incompetent to deal with these complex and important issues: they'd better leave it to the captain. One device is to develop a star system, an array of figures who are often media creations or creations of the academic propaganda establishment, whose deep insights we are supposed to admire and to whom we must happily and confidently assign the right to control our lives and to control international ..." ---Noam Chomsky I think people generally rise to our expectations as well as sinking to them. -Jake Sapiens Like good health, spiritual growth, and nourishing relationships, meaningful work is one of the abundances of life, that we neglect at our peril. -Laurence G. Boldt But as science progressively gives us the power to remould matter and energy to suit our desires - or whims - it would take an extraordinary degree of malice for us to sustain the painfulness of Darwinian life indefinitely. For as our power increases, so does our complicity in its persistence. -- http://www.huxley.net/ It is not hard work which is dreary, it is superficial work. -Edith Hamilton All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move! -Benjamin Franklin The true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance. -Leonard Schapiro Dad: tomorrow. Kip: holiday weekend in August (4th 5th 6th 7th) The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere. -Thomas Jefferson If believing in the reality of planetary and individual abundance is an act of faith, it is certainly no less an act of faith than believing in the real value of the paper money we use everyday. -Laurence G. Boldt The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. -H. L. Mencken We all model ourselves on others to some degree, and we all draw on a repertoire of images and subpersonalities that we can don, mask- like, at appropriate moments. Images can be useful, not unlike a "macro" on my computer: a pre-programmed comand that I can initiate simply by hitting a particular key. Such images provide a simplistic logic that automatically links perception and response, eliminating the need to really see or think about what is going on. -David Spangler People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. -Soren Kierkegaard I think it's very important for a young person to have the courage to do what seems to him significant in his life, and not just take a job in order to make money. But this takes a bit of prudence and very careful planning, and may delay financial achievement and comfortable living. But the ultimate result will be very much to his pleasure. -Joseph Campbell Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Harold Whitman "The free man is wholly absorbed in the development and exercise of his own powers of mind and body, and is always aware of his status as a finite mode of Nature. As he becomes less and less affected by passive emotions, and in proportion as his knowledge increases, he becomes more and more identified in his own mind with the whole process of Nature: the order of his ideas approximates more and more closely to the order of ideas which constitutes God’s thought; he becomes progressively detached from his temporary interests as a particular person interacting with a temporary environment, and he comes to view all things sub specie aeternitatis. His real happiness (beatitudo) consists in this contemplation of the whole machinery and system of Nature, and in reflecting within his own mind the whole intellectual order of things." (Spinoza: An Introduction to His Philosophical Thought, Stuart Hampshire, Pengiun Books, 1987, page 126) If you see a blind man, kick him. Why be kinder than God? -- Old Iranian proverb The fundamental reason all these defensive schemes fail is that 55 years ago we discovered a irresistible force, but unfortunately we never found an immovable object. -- John K Clark jonkc@att.net, on the extropians mailing list (talking about Nuclear Weapons, of course...) when you subsidize anything, you tend to get more of it. -- "phil osborn" , on the extropians mailing list The devil has not a single paid helper. The Opposition employs millions. -Mark Twain

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"Aversion to an idea, simply because of its long association with crackpots, gives crackpots altogether too much influence." -- G. David Brin. It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. -John Philpot Curran A hallucination is the experience of a perception in the absence of any external stimuli. An illusion is the misinterpretation of a received perception (like misinterpreting the perception of heat waves rising from the distant highway as water on the road). A delusion is a belief which is contrary to the facts of the matter -- "Joe E. Dees" , on the Virus mailing list "The best courtroom arguments I have ever heard were not designed to unearth the truth; they were designed to conceal, maul and destroy the truth. More than once I have heard two such arguments opposed to each other, and both driving to the same depressing end. And at their conclusion I have heard the learned judge round up and heave out what remained of the truth in an exposition that surpassed both." -- H.L. Mencken, American Mercury magazine, January 1928 Every day you spend drifting away from your goals is a waste not only of that day, but also of the additional day it takes you to regain lost ground. -Ralph Marston Authentic spirituality is reflected in how one lives and how one experiences existence, not in what one professes to believe; it is intrinsically individualistic rather than conformist. -Nathaniel Branden MIT professor Dave Clark, one of the grand old men of the Internet, may have unintentionally written the IETF anthem in his A Cloudy Crystal Ball/Apocalypse Now presentation at the 24th annual July 1992 IETF conference. Today, it's immortalized on T-shirts: "We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code." -- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/ietf.html Adventure is stepping through brand-new doors with your mouth shut and your eyes wide open. -Barbara Kingsolver "It is surely better to strive for a complete understanding of the phenomena than to despair of the human mind." Stephen Hawking from: Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, 1993. Power grows in us the moment a future dream transforms into present-day action. -Steve Chandler Our children tend to develop narrow interests because our educational system does not adequately prepare them for the exercise of thought, and because our specialized and goal-driven society encourages them to develop professional strengths (as society perceives these strengths) rather than mental wholeness. -Robert Grudin What happens to people when work becomes passe? Contrary to fears of some enmeshed in civilization's work ethic, our tribal past prepared us well for lives as idle rich. In a good climate and location the hunter-gatherer's lot can be very pleasant: an afternoon's outing picking berries or catching fish--what we civilized types would recognize as a recreational weekend--provides life's needs for several days. The rest of the time can be spent with children, socializing or resting. Our ancestors had also to survive hard times, and evolution bequeathed us the capacity for desperate measures, including hard work. Civilization turned that extremity into everyday normality, and now stress is the leading cause of disease. -Hans Moravec There is a slim window of opportunity somewhere in the next fifty years when we will either create entities more capable than ourselves or become them. -Philip Tung Yep Of course, people who want to deny the role of personal agency and responsibility often make use of the metaphor of slavery, generating images of people being enslaved not only by drugs but also by cults, gambling, poverty, pornography, rock music, or mental illness. Persons who use drugs may, figuratively speaking, be said to be the "victims" of temptation, which is as far as one can reasonably carry the rhetoric of victimology. -Thomas Szasz "When anger rises, think of the consequences. " --Confucius "Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage." --Lazarus Long Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots. "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820. Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. --Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Price, 1789. "Our highest insights must -- and should -- sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for them." -Friedrich Nietzsche Rather than 'ghosts in machines' we are more like 'messages in circuitry' and the message itself transcends the means of its expression" -- Paul Davies, _God and the New Physics_, 1983 "There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness... And there is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it." H.L. Mencken Smart Set magazine April 1920 "The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realized in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have passed from these scenes and taken up my public duties in Hell." H.L. Mencken Smart Set magazine December 1919 "If it were proposed tomorrow to pass a law provider that every moving-picture actor in the country should be flogged at the cart's tail once a week, I'd probably be in favor it, as I'd undoubtedly be in favor of a law providing for the same punishment for evangelists, tenors, members of Congress and golf-players." H.L. Mencken Baltimore Evening Sun October 10, 1921 Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it. But why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others--yes, and a lot less dangerous. -Dale Carnegie Using what influence we have is not in itself a destructive thing. The problem arises when the style and force of a person's or institution's influence outweighs the merits of whatever it is they're trying to get us to do. -Douglas Rushkoff "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are." H.L. Mencken Smart Set magazine December 1919 In the wink of an eye, the universe throws off its muddy clothes. -- Ho Chi Minh A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish. -W. H. Auden Most people fail to realize that their feelings toward others are determined by their feelings towards themselves. -Sydney J. Harris At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self. -Brendan Francis Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn. [St. Augustine] ( how much is a repeat?) Believing is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers. [Bruce Calvert] The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. [John Adams] Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches. [Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica] "There's no need to get rid of your self -- if you can get over it, that'll be quite enough." --Sadie Dankens "The basic things will always appear oversimplified to those that are beyond the need for them." --Sadie Dankens "A traffic jam, I say, is a collision between free enterprise and socialism. Free enterprise produces automobiles faster than socialism can build roads and road capacity." A. J. Galambos from Course V-50 Workshop 2 We revise our earlier lives the way authors revise their works, patching, expurgating, suppressing, retitling the past. And in this sense the past is never over, affecting us even (and particularly) when we deny it. -Robert Grudin PS: Eric, I hope your paper on e-mail communication includes a bit about how people only reply when they disagree and that as a result conflict is selected for over compassion, leading to futher alienation of the individual despite their belief that they're finding "connection" or "community" online. -Invictus- Out of the night that covers me Black as the Pit from pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutches of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms the horror of the shade And yet the menace of the years finds me and shall find me unafraid It matters not how strait the gate How charged with punishments the scroll I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. -William Ernest Henley Profound words/concepts collection: destiny incarnation composite (Synaesthesia) fragmentation mammialian heritage SPONTANEOUS ORDER = Parallel order. "informavores," "omnisilly" angst fests mind share brain stuttering unspoken quest shibboleths reified semantic displacement inducers. "minimum concession to irrationalism." Greetings Lemmings and Lemmingettes: Carpe diem, troglodytes. so masturbatorial in nature cynisacreligion Knotted gasps of colour The violence of loneliness 'Technoshamanism,' children of wrath didactic 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' cause-du-jour zealots Willing Suspension of Disbelief Curiouser and Curiouser, in whom existence is concentrated Mission of Mankind winter solstice metaphysical testosterone individually sovereign citizenry symbiosis, which Kelly defines as "obligated cooperation." The Six Phases of a Project: 1) enthusiasm 2) disillusionment 3) panic & hysteria 4) search for the guilty 5) punishment of the innocent 6) praise and honors for the non-participants -- author unknown The Consumer Church of Social/Civil Apathy An American flag, such a common sight these days, is displayed above a staff member's desk. A closer look reveals that, instead of white stars, the blue field is arrayed with tiny corporate logos. -- http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-000003207jan13.story (a story on the EFF) "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Gandhi Multitudes of people, drifting aimlessly to and fro without a set purpose, deny themselves such fulfillment of their capacities, and the satisfying happiness which attends it. They are not wicked, they are only shallow. They are not mean or vicious; they simply are empty -- shake them and they would rattle like gourds. They lack range, depth, and conviction. Without purpose their lives ultimately wander into the morass of dissatisfaction. As we harness our abilities to a steady purpose and undertake the long pull toward its accomplishment, rich compensations reward us. A sense of purpose simplifies life and therefore concentrates our abilities; and concentration adds power. -Kenneth Hildebrand A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. -Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941) Reminds me of a line from 'State and Main': Guy: So, I guess you have to make your own fun around here? Gal: Everyone makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it's entertainment.