Author: Philo

human

Two Wheels and a Tent

The third travel book, Two wheels and a Tent is now out on Amazon and other distributors. It is available in eBook, print and audio form. 

Mark and his Suzuki DL 650 that he calls “Mabel” love adventure. This is a collection of some of the
adventures that they have shared. Like most motorcyclists, a certain relationship develops with the motorcycle; Mabel and Mark trust each other. As they have found out on many occasions adventures are those things that happen to plans and sometimes you need someone you can trust. These are some of those stories.

“Mabel and I have had our fun and our difficulties. Both she and I are getting up there in years but I like to think that both of us have a few more thousand miles in us. I know that when I get back from a long tour and park Mabel it’s not long before I’m thinking of my next adventure, and I think I can hear Mabel thinking about the same thing.”

Logic

Logic will not save us but it is not because it cannot. It is unfortunate that logic cannot save us because as civilizations are built upon the shoulders of giants they are destroyed by the hands of fools

The fools among us turn their crooked backs on logic and cut the branch upon which they sit. Those who do not put a price on logic are those who do not put a price on anything of value. At best they are stupid and at worst they are liars and cheats.

Those that dismiss logic are those that dismiss the importance of not only being and doing good but of their own potential, their very lives; and perhaps most importantly, they dismiss those that do.

Some Aphorisms

To be a master you must feel like a novice.

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Don’t dumb down the divine

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Ignorance is a challenge; stupidity a choice

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Happiness is not constant pleasure; nor is it unending progress

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Fear is a hammer. It can be a useful tool or a violent weapon

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There is no purpose, only process. There is no point but only progress

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Time knows that it is all there is

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Know what is necessary and take the rest in stride

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It is not that we let loose. It is that we don’t tighten up again

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Laziness is not a virtue. Popularity is not a talent

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The drive to be better at the cost of everything else is an empty bargain with the devil

Mastery

Try to become a master at something. It is difficult. It is misunderstood. And if you succeed, which is doubtful, you will live in a world that thrives on mediocrity and overlooks your art. It will redefine mastery to include mediocrity.

But to be a master you must overcome all of this. A master dismisses those who smile snidely and do not care for such heights. A master does not brag because an artist does not need to. Mastery, though, comes at even a higher cost than all of this.

Failure is the norm. Progress is slow and tedious, often feeling like it is non-existent. You will be alone and the world will not care for what you love most. It will take a lifetime to realize that you have not achieved your goal. There will always be better. Your ego will stay bruised and you will relinquish pride with a tear in your eye.

Honesty will be forced and you will kneel, humbled, at the foot of the mountain that you know you must climb. This is when you will be a master but feel like a novice.

Celebration

We want to live and enjoy life. we drink and we are merry. We eat what we want to eat because it tastes good. We enjoy our respite from the world and from ourselves and sometimes we desire to be nothing more than lazy and irresponsible, if only for a while. We might ask for too much, but most of us probably do not.

And yet, just for a little time in the sun, just for a beer or two, or a large, filling meal we pay the cost. We are guilty.

“I’ll gain weight.”

“I’m lazy.”

We might say. And still just for that short time living beyond our own strict regiment the fun of doing so is taken away. Relaxation turned to regret. This is not how it is supposed to be but often it is how it is. We reach goals only to have them swept away because we have dared to celebrate.

But we must smile every now and again because misery is our only other option. Take a piece of celebratory cake and our week is ruined. But savor the sweetness and the texture, and savor the slight smile on your lips.

The universe does not exist for us, but we must always remember to rise above the universe.

Compromise

The word “compromise” sounds good in our modern ears. It rings of progress and of social good. And it is good. It is even necessary. One of the arguments in its favor is that it allows all to sense contentment and happiness. It is for the common good after all.

But there is a price for everything. Not even death is free from this. And compromise is a much more expensive commodity than mortality. With every compromise we make we sell happiness. It is important to remember that all commodities have two aspects: quality and quantity. It is also important to remember that happiness is a quality and compromise is a quantity.

We chip away at the quality of one to allow more of the other.

Compromise is a necessary component of civilization and is becoming more important as we over-populate this planet but to say that compromise is always better is a fool’s game. We compromise our own happiness for numerous reasons but only one reason is worthy. Compromise is warranted when it causes the quality of each of our lives to be greater, not lessened.

Compromise in most of its forms is a lie wrought by those who know nothing of happiness.

Happy

Happiness is an ambiguous word like “love” or “intellect” and because of its vague nature it is often misunderstood. The irony is that we search for happiness without really knowing what it is or what it takes to be happy. Some parameters might help.

  1. Learn to differentiate from those things and people needed from those that are not and choose accordingly.
  2. Although happiness is often thought about as an emotional state, as such it will be fleeting and dependent; it will be insubstantial. Happiness must be a good in itself; it must be the end-goal.
  3. We must rid ourselves of the need to impress others. We must learn to disregard the unwarranted opinions of others, even of those we love.
  4. We must be curious and passionate about learning. we must accept the pitfalls and frustrations that come with actualizing knowledge.
  5. We must never fall prey to gadgets and toys constantly offered to us by consumerism and so-called culture. Happiness will not be found in a thing.
  6. We must do those things that make us better persons. And as we do those things we must learn that doing such sets us up to do be happy in a meaningful and substantial way.

Genius

Richard Feynman’s approach to learning is famous in some circles. What it amounts to is work. But work relies solely on the ability to focus. I recently ran across a useful definition for genius in Scott Young’s book, Ultra-Learning.

Genius: is the ability to focus intently over long periods of time.

It’s a paraphrase but the point is clear. We spend an inordinate amount of time speculating, practicing, and contriving ways to be more efficient, fast, better, in order to become better off financially. However, our ability to focus is slipping away.

The definition above puts many things into perspective. First, it reminds us that what we do is in most cases not important as how we do it. Secondly, it reminds that no matter what our goals or ambitions are they will always be determined by how we thing rather than what we think. Our greatest tool is our mind but we must be willing to use and perhaps nowadays, protect our minds.

Focus is a lifelong goal. Something that demands our time and is difficult. For those reason many will make excuses for their inability or unwillingness to do such “impractical” things. But for those of us who find value in learning we must remember:

A fool walks away in ignorance. A wise man simply walks away.

Meaning of Life

Life is not magical, but it can be.

There are black holes the size of galaxies and the universe is infinite for all intent purposes. Light years are not only measurements of time but life times, of generations. Far more living things have gone extinct than are living today.

These are thoughts that ought to be comforting if not a little unnerving. But they serve to remind us that life is so much more than a miracle. It is a gift from a watchmaker, but a blind one. The worries that we have are about us, and they are important to us, but not as important as we like to think.

And while many around us are blind as the watchmaker itself to this underlying fact does not mean that we should give up on living a life of happiness and satisfaction. In fact, being happy and satisfied is based on the acceptance that the universe is infinite and meaningless…and we are part of it.

Success!

What is success but an acceptance of being unsuccessful for long enough.

We all hear platitudes about persistence and fortitude regarding being successful but actually living this way is not easy. The other side of those sentences about success is usually “then you can get what you want.” Success is usually measured with economic value but persistence and fortitude are so much more worthy.

In fact, a good life is so much more than the latest gadget or “newest model” and so is success. Getting things is easy. Getting credit is easy. But earning things and earning credit is not. And success is directly related to earning what we have, what we actually have. If we do this long enough then we will start to realize the value of fortitude and persistence.

Being unsuccessful is not necessarily failure. In fact, failure often means the opposite of what we think of when we use the word. Failure can mean that we tried. Failure can mean that we have learned what our limitations are, at least for the moment. Failure can imply that we have tried to be better.

Those people who fail in life are often those that are curious and intelligent. And those that are successful are sometimes not.

A big house and an empty head often go together.