It Can Be Avoided

“Believing themselves to be helpless, people will endure suffering that could in fact be avoided or stopped by appropriate action.” - Gold, Joseph. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 136

We have the power in any situation to do one of three things. We can,

1) accept the situation
2) try to change it or
3) run away.

We always have these three choices in any situation. Sometime we might not even consider any of these choices, yet they are always there. We are not helpless and have the power in our daily lives to overcome many things.

Read Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now for even more ideas on how to live in the present moment.

People Don't Know

“Joseph Campbell, the scholar of mythology, once complained that people don’t know what a metaphor is so, for these people, a myth is a lie.” - Crumb, R. & Peter Poplaski. The R. Crumb Handbook. MQ Publications Ltd: London, 2005 pg 260

I think this might be why organized religion seems to be going through a crisis as of late. Mythical stories are easy to openly challenge. In our scientific world we can disprove some of the religious writings that we have relied on for our spiritual existence for so long. But if we step back and realize the importance of myths, then maybe we can see the truth in the metaphor.

I remember hearing a minister say that we are not meant to understand the holy trinity of Christian faith. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit being one is deliberately confusing to remind us that we can never truly understand God. And maybe we can never fully reach a clear understanding of the world either. At least, we will always have metaphor.

Clever Sayings Made by One Man

“. . . a Mondo 2000 scribe marvelled that “reading McLuhan is like reading Shakespeare – you keep stumbling on phrases that you thought were clichés, only this guy made them up!”

Here are some of the phrases that McLuhan coined that have become clichés;

“Some people use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost – for support rather than illumination.
A man all wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
Many a good argument is ruined by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
The short cut is the long way around.
The future is not what it used to be; neither is the past.
The trouble with a cheap specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.
Diaper backwards spells repaid. Think about it.
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
History can be changed.
Art is what you can get away with.
Give more credit than you take.
Communication is what people with nothing to say do to people who won’t listen.
You don’t like these ideas? I got others!”
- Fitzgerald, Judith. Marshall McLuhan: Wise Guy. XYZ Publishing: Montreal, 2001. pg 89-90

Never Follow

“I am recognizing
that the voice inside my head
is urging me to be myself
and never follow someone else”
- A Tribe Called Quest “Steve Biko” from the album “Midnight Marauders

Think About It All the Time

This is transcribed from an episode. Angela is speaking to her neighbour. Neither of them had been in a serious relationship before. They are young teenagers. This was a great exchange between the characters.

[about sex]
Angela “I mean, I think about it... all the time, but...”
Brian “Wait, you think about it all the time?”
Angela, “Brian! Yes! Shut up... guys don't have a monopoly on thinking about it.”
Brian, “They don't? “
Angela, “No!”

Think and Then Do

“Every time you put across a new idea, you’ll find ten people who thought of it before you – but they only thought of it.” - Scouting in New South Wales

I found this quotation clipped from the pages of Leader magazine. I’m not sure what issue or year, it was published. My dad clipped a bunch of articles from this magazine during his time as a Scout Leader. I enjoyed reading the inspirational quotes and when I found a few of the clippings a few years back, I knew I had to add them to my commonplace book.

Science is Story

“Luria thought a science of this kind would be best introduced by a story – a detailed case-history.” - Oliver Sacks. The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Other Clinical Tales. Summit: New York, 1985. pg 5

I always thought that the humanities had a lot to say about the nature of reality. I have always been an admirer of good stories. I love literature. I loved studying books in class and writing essays. I don’t know a lot of people who actually like writing essays in university but I loved it. It was actually a bit of a loss when I no longer had to write them. I found that I missed it.

Analyzing stories was something that I had done for almost my entire school career. But now that I had my degree, I no longer needed to do this. It didn’t seem to sit right with me. That was when I realized that story is everywhere. It isn’t just in books. Everything tells a story, even science. This quotation helped me to finally understand what science is, and it started my collection of story quotables. There will be a lot more to follow.