Starting with DFW ending with Gratitude

Exciting discovery Announcement!!! 
An author who puts into words I can understand my thoughts that I cannot put into words:   David Foster Wallace

This week's quotes were DFW as well

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.
That is real freedom. 
That is being taught how to think.
The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" — the constant, gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.”
David Foster Wallace

, 

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“Mediocrity is contextual.” 
David Foster Wallace

, Infinite Jest

I am trying to avoid reading all of the unfettered political ranting and never ending torrents of advertising drivel that clog my electronic devices every time I wake them up. Fortunately, every now and then I see something that is worth a look and occasionally a read. These random reminders that there are a few voices speaking out that make sense on a reasonable common sense level reassure me that there are people in the world who are more than shells for squirming pain bodies that are spewing toxic infectious splatter and creating an epidemic of fear. (Collective and individual "pain bodies" from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth)

Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senator for Massachusetts from an election speech in replying to the charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare", by pointing out that no one grew rich in the U.S. without depending on infrastructure paid for by the rest of society, stating:^[59][60]; 
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." 
(I followed a random trail to find the above on Wikipedia)


I live in a park!

One of my amazing workspaces.

It is very hard to believe the insanity in the rest of the world when I am blessed to be surrounded with beauty and peace. My dream kitchen... where I sit to read, write, dream, talk to Alex and Morgan, cook for anybody and everybody and mostly for joy, dance and sing, get over my petty ego issues, cry and shout when I'm pissed off, drink wine, have a couple puffs, be stupid and go very deeply philosophical on the meaning of ...

Daffodils in Aunt Edith's green reed jug Edith is the "e" in alejamo
She lived in this house for 23 years. 
I have now lived here for 26 years.
Ain't life funny!! That is 49 years of daffodils and I'd guess a minimum of 100 books read a year so 4900 books read looking out over Lake Ontario and the lights of Burlington. 
I am living a dream and I have no idea how or why I have been so lucky but I am overflowing with 

GRATITUDE

Quotes that make me feel like I may not be completely crazy

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” 
― Winston S. Churchill

“...logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.” 

― David Foster Wallace

from his book; Infinite Jest

                                        Belize meditation

I have just discovered David Foster Wallace because we are going to our next Books on Film movie Monday night at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Monday night and the film is End of the Tour and there to discuss it will be David Lipsky. The film is about David Foster Wallace and David Lipsky where DFW is on a book promoting tour for his novel "Infinite Jest" and DL is a writer for Rolling Stone magazine who has joined him for the last five days. This is the first time that DFW's writing has entered my conscious mind and, while i will probably never read his book (1000 plus pages) I am amazed and quickly becoming addicted to his quotes! 

Like this one:

“Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.
It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.” 
― David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Buddha said it best!

Today's quote

“There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.” – Buddha

What is integrity??

I spent the whole evening crafting a letter that probably no one will read.

Where do we have a voice? 

When is the voice of reason going to be heard?

When are compassion, empathy, caring, respect going to be considered more important that personal gain, protecting our material stuff, and fear that if we care for others there will be less for us?

I want a country that will stand up for human rights and not be afraid of the economic or social consequences. Because that is how we are taught to be with bullies. We have friends that will be there if we do and it will give others the courage to stand up too.

This is Leadership!!! Why does no one in government see it/ or more importantly act on it??? If all they care about is being re elected there is going to be no country left to re elect them and they will be merely puppets of the USA. Who's population needs us to be strong and stand up as well! Oh my goodness this is crazy

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

There are so many good things we as a country are doing for refugees and suffering people! But our immigration and refugee policies, anti Islamophobia movement, taking in new people and all of our compassion and integrity are at risk of being moot if we do not take action and rescind the "Safe Third Country Agreement" now! 

We cannot win against a bully by appeasement that sacrifices values. Canadians need a stand NOW! Otherwise we will divide ourselves and eat ourselves up over the little battles. The longer it takes to make that stand the more divisive it will be for us, and this is your governments responsibility. It will need to happen, please let us be strong enough to be proactive and not wait until we have no choice.

This is about basic human dignity and respect. This is about being a person with a heart and soul. It is not about politics or economics but about the world our children are going to have to live in. Standard of living means nothing if we do it on the backs of the suffering people that we pretend are not our responsibility.

We have an opportunity to stand up and be the Canada that we as Canadians, along with the rest of the world, believed us to be. This is more important than short term economics and politics. This goes beyond all the what ifs and its not been proven yets... This is the basic right of all people to live without fear of persecution. 

People are suffering and we can do something! Is this not an opportunity to be the country we say we are? Are we going to be the complicit silent neighbour?? That will not be respected ever and once this regime is over will show us as fickle, manipulated hypocrites. It would be easier to be Mexico right now.

I will be hiding my Canadian flag when I travel if we continue to support US as a "Safe Third Country" until their current policies are rescinded. (If travel is safe at all in the future as a 'only look after ourselves' means we cannot expect others to respect or protect our rights and freedoms when we step off our soil)

This is of the most urgent nature, we are a last bastion of hope for desperate people and if we can only find a way to get past our fear and open our doors then it sends the message to other people that there is another way. Sweden and the few other countries that are opening doors need us to stand up! The fence sitters and everyone else who feels their voice is not heard needs us to stand up. 

To do nothing is to support to the current Republican government's views on equal rights.

Saturday morning

Finished reading Reluctant Genius, the biography of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray. I recommend it as an excellent read. I had no idea of the range of interests and imagination of Bell's min

Ubterestubg

Just found my blog again - more than a year later. wow!