The Impossible Project

12.13.10

You may or may not know that I am a polaroid film enthusiast (mildly) - I actually have a polaroid camera, that I am essentially afraid to use, because of the fact that polaroid no longer produces film for the instant cameras (huge buzzkill). 

I recently stumbled across The Impossible Project, and thus now feel confident and courageous enough to take some more pics with my camera (I have in my capacity a max possibility of 15, and so far I have taken 1 accidental photo turned sideways of a doorframe in my house...i actually love the pic, and have it up in my office). It feels good to know a small group of passionate people are out there taking this bull by the horns and producing their own polaroid film for the sheer love of it. 

Self and Soul

12.9.10

A few things to share with you today:

1. A quote from a book called The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul - a very paragraph club-y read if you ever come across it. And you know I like this quote because I'm willing to type out the whole thing.

"The idea that what you are is not simply a living body (or a living brain) but also a soul or spirit seems to many people to be unscientific, in spite of its ancient tradition. 'Souls,' they might want to say, 'have no place in science and could never fit into the scientific world view. Science teaches us that there are no such things as souls. We don't believe in leprechauns and ghosts anymore, thanks to science, and the suspect idea of a soul inhabiting a body - the 'ghost in the machine' - will itself soon give up the ghost.' But not all versions of the idea that you are something distinct from your purely physical body are so vulnerable to ridicule and refutation. Some versions, as we shall see, actually flourish in the garden of science.

Our world is filled with things that are neither mysterious and ghostly nor simply constructed out of the building blocks of physics. Do you believe in voices? How about haircuts? Are there such things? What are they? What, in the language of a physicist,is a hole - not an exotic black hole, but just a hole in a piece of cheese, for instance? Is it a physical thing? What is a symphony? Where in space and time does 'The Star Spangled Banner' exist? Is it nothing but some ink trails on some paper in the Library of Congress? Destroy that paper and the anthem would still exist. Latin still exists, but it is no longer a living language. The language of the cavepeople of France no longer exists at all. The game of bridge is less than a hundred years old. What sort of thing is it? It is not animal, vegetable, or mineral.

These things are not physical objects with mass, or a chemical composition, but they are not purely abstract objects either - objects like the number Pi, which is immutable and cannot be located in space and time. These things have birthplaces and histories. They can change and things can happen to them. They can move about - much the way a species, a disease, or an epidemic can. We must not suppose that science teaches us that every thing anyone would ever want to take seriously is identifiable as a collection of particles moving about in space and time. Some people may thing it is just common sense (or just good scientific thinking) to suppose you are nothing but a particular living, physical organism - a moving mound of atoms - but in fact this idea exhibits a lack of scientific imagination, not hard-headed sophistication. One doesn't have to believe in ghosts to believe in selves that have an identity that transcends any particular living body."



2-106. LIFE's 2010 Pictures of the Year. Beautiful and especially exciting because one of the photos was taken by a photographer friend of Ward's! The link below is to that picture, but you can click through to see the rest of them at your leisure. Some of them are truly breathtaking.

http://www.life.com/image/ugc1148861/in-gallery/52491/2010-pictures-of-the-year  

Post-it notes

12.7.10

Long ago Bill proposed this exercise for the gang to try (at sweetness_7 - i think it was my first trip there) - imagine that you lost your memory every night. what would you write on a post-it note for yourself to read the next morning?

my favorite: "You have been cautious for 23 years, start making mistakes."

an oldie but goodie

12.6.10

Friends, 
Today is Monday and before I head out into the middle of Old Man Winter, I wanted to share some inspiration:

Some of you may be familiar with what I am about to share (because I've mentioned it before), but some may not.  Either way, it is a great great poem that I hope inspires you today (whether for the first time, or the 10th times).

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16872

Winning worship

12.5.10

For this, I am going to direct you to Donald Miller's blog (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, etc.). He comments on C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory" (which is also a stellar read). Excerpt:

"As I mentioned yesterday, I’m reading The Weight of Glory this week and was struck by Lewis’ comment that much of what we do we do to “win worship.” Much of what we tweet, blog about, write about, and say in conversation is an attempt at such. Lewis considered this an inheritance from Paganism.

Winning worship, then, is what happens when we aren’t aware of something greater than ourselves. When I attempt to “win worship” it’s because I’m not standing before anything bigger or more impressive than myself, and in fact see what’s standing in front of me as less than me, and am calling it to worship what I believe is the most impressive thing in the room, myself. It’s gloomy."

You can read the entire post here: http://donmilleris.com/2010/12/03/the-most-impressive-thing-in-the-room/

And Lewis' sermon here: http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf

Personally, I find that this idea hits terribly close to home, so to speak. I've made 2010 the Year of Authenticity for myself (sorry, I diverged from the C-named themes), because I know that it is something that demands a more honest approach to life. I think this ties in nicely with this past week's theme of failure and (especially) vulnerability, because authenticity, especially in how "I" attempt to "win worship," as Lewis says, reflects how I am truly feeling toward others in my soul. If I consider this "weight of glory" and how it affects my situation, and I continuously looking back at myself, I am not considering something larger and greater. If I'm all that I can see, then, as Miller says, that really is gloomy. Vulnerability, I think, is similar, in that openness, both to others and in self-awareness, requires looking at the larger picture. 

word of the day

12.4.10

the word of the day as provided by dictionary.com for wednesday was this:

palingenesis \pal-in-JEN-uh-sis\, noun:
1. Rebirth; regeneration.
2. In biology, embryonic development that reproduces the ancestral features of the species.
3. Baptism in the Christian faith.
4. The doctrine of transmigration of souls.


I spent about 5 mins giggling because it has the letter p-a-l-i-n next to each other, and i think she is just <sarcasm> fantastic </sarcasm>
more often than not, she makes me laugh, and this was just one more instance that that was true.




also, i did not eat chinese on thursday but the people at my work did and i just stole a fortune cookie from them. my fortune was "our first love and our last love is--self love"

What makes you happy?

12.3.10

When I first met my new friend, I was really surprised by the authenticity of our first conversation because one of the first things she asked me was 'what makes you happy?'.  It's a simple question but dug right into who I am...there was no beating around the bush (i.e. where are you from?  what music to you listen to? etc.).  It was a personal question and she just dropped it out there. 

So my challenge for you all is to ask this question to someone you don't know.  Please report back with their response...it will be like show and tell.