Man's best friend
Random thoughts rescued from the wastebasket
Dear L,
Another batch of homespun thoughts for you.
Yours,
-J
Empire and Shire.
The great aim of politics is to make things so safe that people get engrossed in their own personal, private worlds. But once people get engrossed in their own personal worlds, they lose the desire and ability to really practice politics. The Empire creates the Shire, and the success of the Shire breaks up the Empire.
Prosperity or equality.
There are only two ways to stop illegal immigration into a prosperous country. The first is to use violence and the threat of violence — a sealed border and deportations by force. The second is to let people in until the quality of life decreases so nobody wants to come in anymore.
If you don’t choose the first, you choose the second.
Carte blanche.
Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
Yes, and when we give the public a free pass to kick us, to embarrass us, to let us down, we add a million to the list.
Man’s best friend.
People love dogs because they're always happy to see you, subsist on practically garbage, accept a scolding or a kicking with grace, and never imply their owners are boring, or selfish, or stupid, or rude.
When a man loves dogs and hates people, he shows what he wants from people but was unwilling to be to anyone else first. A dog both flatters and shames his owner. The dog-lover runs from what he hates while being it.
Forward and back.
History is just as surprising as the future. Both are a giant void, and you never know what you’re going to find.
Bad guy, right words.
It doesn't matter who truth comes from. Whoever speaks truth to me, in that moment, is my benefactor.
It is more important to be right with the wrong people than to be wrong with the right people.
Adam? Where are you?
It’s easier to do Bible study with your family in the morning. By the evening you've been seen eating too many apples, and are ashamed to see God (or anyone who knows him) face-to-face.
In the morning you're innocent; by night you feel naked.
A hell of a trade, or a trade from hell?
The bigger your business, the further you trade. The further you trade, the more things you put up with.
Diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance (to the extreme) may not always be the creeds of the international businessman, but they’re always his essence. To make the most money he has to subvert not only his tastes and convictions, but those of his employees — and eventually those of his government.
Chiaroscuro.
What are good and evil? Great charity can only be expressed in great poverty, great mercy in great wrongdoing, great heroism in great villainy, and great solutions in great perplexity.
God creates light to outshine darkness. God creates Satan — the great district attorney — so we can know Jesus, the great public defender. Pain was the only way to show the joy of His inner being. All suffering for His children is temporary. The end result of this whole struggle is ecstasy. The depths were created so we could scale the highest mountains.
God vs Man.
The question of Calvinism vs Armenianism — in other words, whether we choose salvation or God chooses us — is ultimately a failure to understand Buddhism.
Every man is interconnected, either by his senses, his memory, his imagination, or a long chain of events, with much of the universe. A man can’t walk without the floor, so the floor is (in a sense) him walking. A man can’t judge a painting without the light and the painting, so in a sense, the sun and the painting are him judging. What does he eat? Grain. So the grain is part of him eating. Where does he sleep? A bed. So the bed is part of him sleeping.
A man has no choice to be anything without other things. And a man has no choice to be saved without a savior. Both must act to be what they are — and what the Calvinists and Arminians fight about is which of them is most irrelevant.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Love it, hate it, build it, break it, catch it, lose it, grab it, drop it.
Miss it and kiss it.
Size it up,
try it out,
tinker with it and then switch it around.
Go somewhere nice and then leave it.
Lose yourself in a person and then forget them.
Cry about something one day and the next day make fun of it.
The central feature of all life is change. Those who accept the sovereignty of God must accept the world we were given — and then thank Him for giving us the power to reject it. We weren't just born to say thank you. We were also born to say no thank you.
And wisdom is knowing which to do when.
Passing the buck.
Ogden Nash once wrote,
He drinks because she scolds, he thinks;
She thinks she scolds because he drinks;
And neither will admit what’s true,
That he’s a sot and she’s a shrew.
There are people who have problems and people who are problems. The latter usually portray themselves as the former.
Warm or cold?
How can anyone admire something without loathing something else? “Do not judge” means “do not love.”
Yours,
-J
please adorn that wastebasket with opulent materials of your choice, and you mustn't empty it- I am still chewing on those hauntingly resonant nuggets of RT (random thoughts)!!