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Mark's Home!
(I regarded this as my "Staying Connected for Sanity's Sake" or "Thank God, I've got a Website!")
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
— Henry David Thoreau ( Walden )
“I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.” “They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”
— Gandhi ( Satyagraha philosophy - CWMG, Vol. 088 1983 p. 262 )
"As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform. ... It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking."
— Martin Luther King, Jr. - The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. pp. 23–24. 1998 Carson, Clayborne (ed.) ISBN 0-446-52412-3. )
"The struggle is great, the task divine—to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility."
— Epictetus ( Discourses, 2.18.27–28 E )
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”
— Epictetus, ( Discourses, 2.5.4–5 )
“Life is nasty, brutish, and short”
— Thomas Hobbes ( Leviathan, "The Incommodites Of Such A War" )
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."
— John Locke ( Second Treatise of Government, Ch. II, sec. 6 )
The Social Contract Theory originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.
Transcendental Ethos: A Study of Thoreau's Social Philosophy and ... and his belief that nature exists independent from the mind and consists of eternal laws.
frederick_transcendental_ethos.pdf
( Gandhi's Satyagraha was incorrectly looked at by many as having ties to Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. With Gandhi, the disobedience was to be passive and do no harm! Project Gutenburg EBook link Libervox audio link)
"It matters not what you look at. It matters what you see."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge!"
-- Albert Einstein “The Saturday Evening Post” in 1929
Don't worry be happy?!
(Lyrics)
Why is it that this Bobby McFerrin's song has become such an earworm for me? Should I call it 'a catchy tune'?! Do I need herd immunity or a vaccination? I'll chose friendship and happiness!
As an aspiring transcendentalist, I see Bobby's song in a very philosophical way, and it makes me reflect on being an American.
Has anyone seen the Mike Wallace - Ayn Rand interview of 1959? She (Rand) was the author of "The Fountain Head" (Wikipedia), a popular movie. I do not espouse (nor adopt) her callous type of philosophy, yet feel that this guilty pleasure type of capitalistic ideology has unwittingly corrupted the very soul of our democracy. (See Objectivism)
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
Yet, my conundrum is; "Should I openly clap?"
"Clap along if you feel"
--Pharrell Williams - Happy ( lyrics )
