"Lift Up Your Eyes"
Jul 12, 2017 09:38:34 #
"Lift Up Your Eyes"
"Lift Up Your Eyes"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When was the last time you tasted the sublime? When did you last feel wonder? Can you remember feeling awed by something?
These are things we need, if we are to thrive. They are fuel for the higher human abilities. If we lack them, as is currently endemic throughout the West, our higher abilities will lag. For lack of better terms we can call these feelings “upward movements of the heart,” and we are diminished when there is a lack of them. Without them we fail to develop our higher capacities and insights. We slide more and more toward becoming, in one critic’s words, “mere trousered apes.”
I am certainly not the first person to notice this. Here, for example, is something Albert Einstein wrote on the subject: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Here’s a comment from Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
And here’s a poem from Richard Feynman:
"Out of the cradle
onto the dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."
We need these things.
Currents to the Contrary: Sadly, the modern West has become a mad scramble to distract as many sets of eyes as possible, and to keep them – to own them – for as long as possible. And so long as professional distractors own your imagination, you won't experience much in the way of awe.
Think of Google and Facebook; these outfits bring in billions of dollars per month, based almost entirely on how much human attention they can capture. Likewise the many news networks; they get paid according to how many people watch their images for how many minutes. These people are serious about owning your brain cycles; they employ armies of employees to count, gather, plan, and improve their ownership of your eyes. Please understand the content they deliver serves only to grasp your attention.
Certainly websites like Freeman’s Perspective also want your attention but not for its own sake. I want your attention because I think we have something worthwhile to communicate, not to own your brain. Facebook and Google want to own you… the inner you.
Likewise the lords of academia; they want your mind to bear their impress... permanently. Consider, for example, the many academics who espouse cold, rationalist, materialistic philosophies: that we are no more than preprogrammed machines, that words can never really communicate anything, that humanity is ignorant and dangerous. Have you noticed that they reek of “smarter than thou”? Then if you have the opportunity, examine their lives for beautiful acts, for loving passions, for kindness and deep benevolence. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice a striking lack of those things.
The Contrasts: Among the greatest of all contrasts to the upward movements of the heart are those pertaining to dominance, status, and rulership. They are natural antagonists.
Think of drinking in the wonders of the universe, the beauty of nature, the glorious love between a good parent and their child… and then contrast those things with the blight of the dominator “protecting” you at the point of a sword… of the politician cultivating your fears like a gardener cultivates a garden… of the lover of status who feels pleasure when seeing you beneath her.
Dominance, status, and rulership are the drives of the people who abuse us. And they are primary causes for our elevated experiences being diminished.
Moving Past the Blockage: We need to get away from these people and beyond these foul concepts. And once we do, life will expand. Here to make that point is a final quote, this one from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom…"
The things that contribute to our higher nature have been driven away from the Western world, and often systematically. Humans who are denuded of the higher things are far less trouble to rule, and they are far easier to manipulate… to own without their noticing. But don’t let yourself by driven away from the higher and better things:
Lay under the stars and wonder.
Look into the face of a child and experience his or her awe of the world.
Sit in the wilderness and imagine benevolence and beauty and goodness unchained.
Lie in bed and imagine yourself with a conscious sense of righteousness.
Imagine yourself with no embedded fear.
Ruminate over good things you could do in the future, over beautiful things you’d do in the right circumstances.
Politics poisons this, dominators wish to subdue it, sociopaths cannot experience it. Get as much of it as you can. Go out of your way to cultivate it.”
- https://www.freemansperspective.com/
"Lift Up Your Eyes"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When was the last time you tasted the sublime? When did you last feel wonder? Can you remember feeling awed by something?
These are things we need, if we are to thrive. They are fuel for the higher human abilities. If we lack them, as is currently endemic throughout the West, our higher abilities will lag. For lack of better terms we can call these feelings “upward movements of the heart,” and we are diminished when there is a lack of them. Without them we fail to develop our higher capacities and insights. We slide more and more toward becoming, in one critic’s words, “mere trousered apes.”
I am certainly not the first person to notice this. Here, for example, is something Albert Einstein wrote on the subject: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Here’s a comment from Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
And here’s a poem from Richard Feynman:
"Out of the cradle
onto the dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."
We need these things.
Currents to the Contrary: Sadly, the modern West has become a mad scramble to distract as many sets of eyes as possible, and to keep them – to own them – for as long as possible. And so long as professional distractors own your imagination, you won't experience much in the way of awe.
Think of Google and Facebook; these outfits bring in billions of dollars per month, based almost entirely on how much human attention they can capture. Likewise the many news networks; they get paid according to how many people watch their images for how many minutes. These people are serious about owning your brain cycles; they employ armies of employees to count, gather, plan, and improve their ownership of your eyes. Please understand the content they deliver serves only to grasp your attention.
Certainly websites like Freeman’s Perspective also want your attention but not for its own sake. I want your attention because I think we have something worthwhile to communicate, not to own your brain. Facebook and Google want to own you… the inner you.
Likewise the lords of academia; they want your mind to bear their impress... permanently. Consider, for example, the many academics who espouse cold, rationalist, materialistic philosophies: that we are no more than preprogrammed machines, that words can never really communicate anything, that humanity is ignorant and dangerous. Have you noticed that they reek of “smarter than thou”? Then if you have the opportunity, examine their lives for beautiful acts, for loving passions, for kindness and deep benevolence. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice a striking lack of those things.
The Contrasts: Among the greatest of all contrasts to the upward movements of the heart are those pertaining to dominance, status, and rulership. They are natural antagonists.
Think of drinking in the wonders of the universe, the beauty of nature, the glorious love between a good parent and their child… and then contrast those things with the blight of the dominator “protecting” you at the point of a sword… of the politician cultivating your fears like a gardener cultivates a garden… of the lover of status who feels pleasure when seeing you beneath her.
Dominance, status, and rulership are the drives of the people who abuse us. And they are primary causes for our elevated experiences being diminished.
Moving Past the Blockage: We need to get away from these people and beyond these foul concepts. And once we do, life will expand. Here to make that point is a final quote, this one from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom…"
The things that contribute to our higher nature have been driven away from the Western world, and often systematically. Humans who are denuded of the higher things are far less trouble to rule, and they are far easier to manipulate… to own without their noticing. But don’t let yourself by driven away from the higher and better things:
Lay under the stars and wonder.
Look into the face of a child and experience his or her awe of the world.
Sit in the wilderness and imagine benevolence and beauty and goodness unchained.
Lie in bed and imagine yourself with a conscious sense of righteousness.
Imagine yourself with no embedded fear.
Ruminate over good things you could do in the future, over beautiful things you’d do in the right circumstances.
Politics poisons this, dominators wish to subdue it, sociopaths cannot experience it. Get as much of it as you can. Go out of your way to cultivate it.”
- https://www.freemansperspective.com/
Jul 12, 2017 10:14:24 #
no propaganda please
Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun
pafret wrote:
"Lift Up Your Eyes" br br img https://... (show quote)
Great concepts. Yesterday I saw the first IO moth of the season, it had finished mating and died on our porch. Brought it in to admire and share with NPP. Today the neighbors grandson came over with eggs for us and was so excited to see and actually touch the moth he took it home to share. Sometimes it is the littlest things that are the most fun to share and remind us most of the greatness of God's creation.
SWMBO
Jul 12, 2017 10:45:56 #
no propaganda please wrote:
Great concepts. Yesterday I saw the first IO moth of the season, it had finished mating and died on our porch. Brought it in to admire and share with NPP. Today the neighbors grandson came over with eggs for us and was so excited to see and actually touch the moth he took it home to share. Sometimes it is the littlest things that are the most fun to share and remind us most of the greatness of God's creation.
SWMBO
SWMBO
I wasn't familiar with the IO moth so I looked it up. “Io” is from the mythological Greek goddess Io, who was first priestess of Hera, wife of Zeus the god of thunder and lightning and king of both gods and men." Interesting choice of names. Does yours look like this?
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io01.jpg
or this
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io18.jpg
Jul 12, 2017 10:54:07 #
pafret wrote:
"Lift Up Your Eyes" br br img https://... (show quote)
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills
From whence cometh my help?
My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth
He will not suffer my foot to be moved...!
Jul 12, 2017 14:10:55 #
no propaganda please
Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun
pafret wrote:
I wasn't familiar with the IO moth so I looked it up. “Io” is from the mythological Greek goddess Io, who was first priestess of Hera, wife of Zeus the god of thunder and lightning and king of both gods and men." Interesting choice of names. Does yours look like this?
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io01.jpg
or this
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io18.jpg
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io01.jpg
or this
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/Automeris_io18.jpg
Ours looks as if it posed for the middle one. does your book indicate if there is an easy way to tell what sex it is? I forgot to look in the book to find out.
I believe that it is one of the underwing family of moths. We also have luna moths here and they are spectacular.
More on this silkworm moth can be found here. NEVER LET A DAY PASS WITHOUT LEARNING SOMETHING NEW
http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/saio.htm
Jul 12, 2017 14:31:56 #
no propaganda please wrote:
Ours looks as if it posed for the middle one. does your book indicate if there is an easy way to tell what sex it is? I forgot to look in the book to find out.
I believe that it is one of the underwing family of moths. We also have luna moths here and they are spectacular.
More on this silkworm moth can be found here. NEVER LET A DAY PASS WITHOUT LEARNING SOMETHING NEW
http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/saio.htm
I believe that it is one of the underwing family of moths. We also have luna moths here and they are spectacular.
More on this silkworm moth can be found here. NEVER LET A DAY PASS WITHOUT LEARNING SOMETHING NEW
http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/saio.htm
I googled it and this is the link:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/io_moth.htm
It says this is the female moth. There is a lot of information at this site including these things have a painful sting and the moth shows this configuration when it is threatened.
Jul 12, 2017 17:07:48 #
no propaganda please
Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun
pafret wrote:
I googled it and this is the link:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/io_moth.htm
It says this is the female moth. There is a lot of information at this site including these things have a painful sting and the moth shows this configuration when it is threatened.
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/io_moth.htm
It says this is the female moth. There is a lot of information at this site including these things have a painful sting and the moth shows this configuration when it is threatened.
apparently the caterpillars are really nasty, but the moth is beautiful. We have seen them here for twenty years, but not as abundant as all the silkworm moths species in the Land Between The Lakes in Kentucky. Stayed in a resort there years ago next to a buffalo farm, amazing creatures, and much smarter than many of the people who tried to touch them, despite the signs warning how dangerous a P**O buffalo can be.
Jul 12, 2017 18:39:41 #
no propaganda please wrote:
apparently the caterpillars are really nasty, but the moth is beautiful. We have seen them here for twenty years, but not as abundant as all the silkworm moths species in the Land Between The Lakes in Kentucky. Stayed in a resort there years ago next to a buffalo farm, amazing creatures, and much smarter than many of the people who tried to touch them, despite the signs warning how dangerous a P**O buffalo can be.
In 1964 I took my wife on a vacation touring the country. On Route 66 somewhere in Kansas we stopped at a roadside tourist attraction which had Buffalo. The corral fence was made of timbers the thickness of railroad ties. There was a sign prominently posted which said "Do Not Provoke the Buffalo, This Fence is Only a Formality".
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