The Big Think

Every book is a children’s book if the child can read.

Quote of the day:

anyone with six seconds of experience in the theater knows that it’s all just lumps of meat shouting in the dark on an empty stage without the technical people

James Lileks.

hear hear!

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the
scale.
Robert Browning, expanded via Barryland (this was so good I had to repost it here. Thanks Barry!).

Welcome to The Big Think: where a post about video games is followed by nineteenth century English poetry.

You shouldn’t speak until you know what you’re talking about. That’s why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I’m a f—ing actor! They hand me a script. I act. I’m here for entertainment, basically, when you whittle everything away. I’m a grown man who puts on makeup.

Brad Pitt, Time, October 13, 1997

“If you give orders and explain nothing, you might get obedience, but you’ll get no creativity. If you tell them your purpose, then when your original plan is shown to be faulty, they’ll find another way to achieve your goal. Explaining to your men doesn’t weaken their respect for you, it proves your respect for them.”
Shadow fo the Giant, Orson Scott Card, p 301

“Good coffee, wine, and cheese are worth the cost, but good bread is worth the time.”
Heavy Hedonist (Cooking Light Magazine)

“There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.”
Wayne Dyer

I am flying at 35,537 feet above Utah right now, heading for Boston. I always get a window seat so that I can press my face against the window and soak in the big, blue world from high altitude. I don’t think I will ever get used to the idea that I am flinging my body at 600 miles per hour, able to see entire states at a glance outside my window. Having a giant, live map of the Earth moving directly beneath me astonishes me, and always will. The aisle seats might be more convenient for bathroom breaks, but give me the killer view that our ancestors could only dream of.

link

This is how I feel.

The Jews of Europe are now the Kurds of Iraq, and the Shiites, and the Marsh Arabs. The point of war is not only to defend one’s own country from attack but also to free from the jaws of death millions of innocent human beings who lack the military means to secure their own freedom. This may not be a universally supported political or military view of war, but it is a religious view of war, and it is my view of this and other wars. I do not know a single Kurd or a single Marsh Arab or a single Iraqi Shiite, but I do know that they have been slaughtered by the thousands, and because of this war they are now free. The Iraqi killing machine has been destroyed. I also know, and every person of even moderate intelligence also knows, that if our troops withdraw now, before victory has been fully achieved they will be slaughtered again. When I say never again in memory of the Holocaust, I don’t mean “never again Jews,” I mean “never again anyone.”

It matters not one wit to me that they are not Jewish nor even that they may not be grateful to America. All that matters to me is that they are made in God’s image and their lives are no longer held tight in the bloody maw of a genocidal dictator. The Jews of Europe and the Kurds of Iraq may both have been outside the strictly delimited aims of the war in Europe or the war in Iraq, but their cries must reach some listening ears and sensitive souls. It is deeply disappointing to me to know that people in my movement of Judaism with whom I share a belief that my daughter deserves the same spiritual horizons as my son cannot feel the need for freedom of those victims of genocide whose cries reach God even if they often do not reach the front pages of the morning papers.

Rabbi Marc Gellman

In recognition of today’s Iraqi vote:

“Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done, and President Bush, let them go to hell!”

Betty Dawisha, Iraqi voter
via polipundit

Instead of relentlessly pursuing survival even after our survival needs are met, we must learn how to do things because they fulfill us— because they are, in a word, fun. Fun is not a distraction from work or a drain on our revenue; it is the very source of both our inspiration and our value. A genuine sense of play ignites our creativity, eases communication, promotes goodwill and engenders loyalty, yet we tend to shun it as detrimental to the seriousness with which we think we need to approach our businesses and careers.

Just too funny not to post:

Nothing quite says Christmas like a Hallmark ornament of Darth Vader, symbol of evil and cruelty, with a red light saber, ready to decapitate the younglings. I think this year they have one of Darth with his limbs missing; press the button, it glows like it’s on fire and screams. Happy Holidays From the Dark Side!

the Quirk

“What’s astrology, daddy?”

“It’s a system of belief for people who cannot handle the intellectual demands of Scientology.”

classic Lileks

(via speculist)

The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

Interesting. Makes you wonder what we think we know today that we really don’t…

Because, in the end, being an entrepreneur is more than ever the way you can choose your path and find the deep satisfaction of walking it.
You can earn your days without being beholden. You can make something, affect the world, leave something behind where once nothing stood. You can turn work into meaning for yourself and for others.
You can be proud.
You can leave a wake.
Come good or ill, you can assume responsibility for yourself, and be whole, and be who you were meant to be.

Entrepreneur magazine

I don’t know why anyone would want to be President. Power without freedom. You could never again just walk around, go shopping, wander through the grocery store, take your kid to the rides at the Mall. The wallet, the keys, the comforting heft of a Zippo – these are the items that let you know you’re free. The only people with nothing in their pockets are Presidents and prisoners.

James Lileks

“The average millionaire can’t tell you who got voted off the island. The average millionaire reads two nonfiction books a month.”
Dave Ramsey

“In 1991, I didn’t know that we would cure breast cancer, and in 2005, I’m convinced we have,”

Dr. Jo Anne Zujewski, head of breast cancer therapeutics at the government’s National Cancer Institute.

from this article.

“When you really magnify what it is you believe in and follow it, the world conspires for you.”
Michael Jager, designer

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Eric Hoffer

I have always believed that the most powerful phrase in the English language is “Teach me about that”.