You don’t own anything.
You are merely the custodian of it
Until you or the thing in question no longer exists.
Everything’s on loan from the universe
Even your body.
Photo by hernanpba 
#Idea – Ownership / 14.05.19
#Idea – The Problem with Light Pollution / 24.04.19
One of the negatives of light pollution
Is that it stops you from remembering
That you live in the universe.
Photo by See-ming Lee (SML)
#ThoughtExperiment – The ‘Dickens Process’ But Worse / 06.05.19
Disclaimer: this is quite unpleasant if you think through it properly.
Imagine the far future
Imagine yourself long gone.
Imagine the person that you’re with
The person that you love (we assume?).
Imagine them
On their deathbed
Old, fragile, perhaps a little senile
Life ebbing away
Life flashing by.
In their delirious last hours
As they cry out your name
What would you want them to say about you?
How would you want them to remember you?
Resolve to be more like that person from now on.
Photo by arriba
#Idea – A Short, Incomplete Argument for Bringing Back the ‘Memento Mori’ / 04.04.19
Without regular reminders
On the shortness of life
And, as a result
The imminence of death
You’re liable to undervalue life
Your life, the lives of those you love, and living beings in general.
Never was the phrase ‘taken for granted’ apter than here.
Of course,
When seen through the wider lens
Of sheer cosmic improbability
Life, death, our entire planet.
It’s all of almost no importance
And yet, it is all we have.
It would seem useful
To make a point of remembering this every day,
If you can.
“Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death, life is insipid.” – Muriel Spark
#ThoughtExperiment – The Long Sleep / 30.03.19
One day you awoke from a sleep
That you did not know you’d been in.
Since then
You awoke every morning
And
You slept every evening
And you went on
Like this was perfectly normal.
You probably did not stop to consider
How long you had been asleep before
And how long you will sleep, later.
And
You probably did not give much heed
To how short the number of these days
In which you get to wake up are
Before, of course,
You go back to sleep for good.
Photo by rmathews100 (Pixabay)
#ThoughtExperiment – Cosmism / 24.03.19
If you could reassemble a deceased person’s atoms
Back to the exact way that they were
Before the person died
Could you bring them back to life?
#ThoughtExperiment – Every Creative Feat Is an Act of Imitation / 02.03.19
If there is a God
And we take the theological premise
That this God created everything
Then
Perhaps every creative act we undertake
Honours this God.
As someone once said:
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”
Photo by MichaelGaida (Pixabay)
#Idea – ? / 01.03.19
The true revelation of the ‘mystical experience’
Is your utter estrangement from nature.
#Idea – Happiness Is a Simple Thing / 15.02.19
All you need to do is
Forget to remind yourself
Of your unhappiness.
With thanks to Anthony de Mello for the idea.
