Forgiveness Is Not Just Divine

"If God can forgive, what more can we humans? We're only humans".
"To err is human; to forgive, divine." (Alexander Pope)

I don't follow these thoughts.

"We are only humans" is the very reason why we would be less able to forgive than God can.

I mean God is perfect, He has everything, He has no need for anything. If God forgives, what does He lose? Nothing.

If someone steals a wallet, then God forgives him, what is it to God? He doesn't need that wallet, or the money in the wallet... God can afford forgiving.
If the victim forgives the thief, the victim gives something. What if he doesn't get the wallet back? What if he gets the wallet back, but some money is missing, and the thief could be sentenced to prison life? If the victim says, "No need for prison. I forgive you. Don't worry about the money, and I will carry the emotional burden of not having justice served", is it less than what God has done, or is it more?
We are looking at the effort expended here, or the lost possession, or the satisfaction of getting back at the "enemy". God doesn't need any effort, he doesn't need any of those things. At least that's what I think His Perfection means.

Forgiveness is giving an emotional or material pardon. That means if a thing is forgiven, the effort to give that thing back is not expected. It is giving. God has everything to give. Man doesn't have that luxury.

Forgiveness is more than divine.

No to Nationalism

I'm not nationalistic.
It narrows my perspective. Not everyone in the world is a Filipino. It's a precursor to racism.
Nationalism is an idea that causes prejudice, death and hatred.
Some people use that idea to hold on to an identity. But it's not personal identity. It's social. And identifying with any society can turn into, for example, a holocaust. Nationalism is an advocate for "survival of the fittest" and supremacist ideologies, and that leads to needless deaths. It leads to renewal too, but renewal by massacre, or genocide, or mass murder...*

Filipinos being nationalistic would be an irony, because we are all over the world, earning our living by probably every known human currency. I work in Riyadh. My Girlfriend works in Taiwan. We support our families in the Philippines. I've heard people say that you're not a Filipino if you have no family member or relative working abroad. Forget national pride. Forget pride, period. Pride is the reason why we think we're better than anyone else. Someone is always better than us. No one is better than us. Presidents serve their countries, their people pay them their salaries, politicians brainwash the masses, Rome invades Europe. Whatever...
This writing is not anti-Filipino. This is anti-nationalism. I just happened to be a Filipino.

///
*Interestingly, the company I work for is expanding in Armenia. In 1915, The Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), sought to exterminate the Armenian minority from their territory/ies during and after World War 1. "It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides... and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust."--Wikipedia ; Only yesterday, Thursday, I sent finished graphics to our contact there named Armine. In a sense, she is a holocaust survivor.

Can we abolish nationalism and live in a globalized society?
http://www.ted.com/conversations/7931/can_we_abolish_nationalism_and.html

Nationalism and Terrorism
http://www.straitstimes.com/microsites/global-perspectives/world-cultures/story/nationalism-and-terrorism-2012091

No Person is All-Knowing

"Some Christians and Muslims say we are humans first, then "Muslim, Christian, Hindi, Jew... etc." only next... if they're wrong, then who is right? You? Who said you are right?? You? Them? Him? Her?
People, people... ideas are dangerous. Ideas/thoughts make us think we are always right. When you always think you are right, then you are wrong. This is not just for one or some of you. I say this for ALL OF US.
At least tell me what keyboard brand and model I am using now, or just tell me what pen brand I use for writing my journals and that is a LITTLE BIT of proof that you are omniscient. If you can't tell me that, don't act as though you are all knowing. Again this is for no one in particular. I say this for ALL OF US. People."

MtFbwY-A

http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/pope-calls-christians-muslims-unite-against-violence-133351242.html
Pope calls for Christians, Muslims to unite against violence
///

Their Eyes

We see better when we look with someone else's eyes.

"Remembrance"

[Published prior to obtaining permission. Apologies...]


Posted originally in the Temple of the Jedi Order
http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/


Written by Robert W Cannon

Sunday Sermon

Remembrance

September 11, 2011

 

            Just about a year ago I wrote my first sermon for the Temple.  The topic of that sermon was Ethnocentrism, or discrimination.  That topic was based on the events surrounding the disaster that occurred on September 11, 2001 in New York.  Today marks the ten year anniversary of this tragedy and I hear many comments about remembering the people that died that day others talk still about what they wish to do to those responsible.  Others still believe the past should stay in the past.
            For me I still take the time to remember those that lost their lives that day as well as all the others that have served their country whether military, police, fire department, or E.M.S.  These are some of the most dangerous and often the lowest paying professions in any country.  The men and women that serve these positions put their lives on the line to protect the rights and safety of those around them.  For anyone that is reading this and, in one of these jobs I would like to send out a special thanks to you on this day.
            The object of writing today is to say it is ok to remember.  Allow yourself time to think about those who have gone before us and given their lives for what they believe.  Remember those that have forged the path of history for us.  This is not the same as dwelling on the past and holding on to those physical things that tie us down.  There is a line that we can draw if we allow ourselves to let go of the negativity of remembrance.  That is the hate that people still show ten years later.  The painful memories that if not let go will mold us into those filled with hate, anger, and fear.  Do not be held down by the past.
            I know this week’s message is short but it is sincere.  I remember this day for the fallen.  I remember the honor of those that serve others.  I remember my friends and family.  I also let go of the hate and sorrow that comes with these memories.

Wishing You More Hunger and Foolishness in 2011 (thanks Steve Jobs)!

Thinking about what to put on the web for the 2011 New Year, I remembered Steve Jobs' commencement address to the lucky graduates of Stanford University in 2005 (which I saw on a Bloomberg TV documentary some days ago).
[At first I thought about simply posting more into and sharing from my "Quotable comics quotes" collection, but I think this one is more appropriate :')]

Hopefully you find inspiration here to do more good:

Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, in Stanford University's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Bring in the New Year!
May the Force be with You All! ;')

   More links for you to check out (links open in a new window/tab):

• One Man's Blog: "Steve Jobs’ Outstanding Stanford Commencement Speech from 2005"
•  One Man's Blog's author JOHN P. also recommends this inspiring story (haven't seen it yet): World’s Most Inspiring Story – Dick and Rick Hoyt
• Stanford University
• The Whole Earth Catalog website
• Stanford Report, June 12, 2005 - "Steve Jobs to 2005 graduates: 'Stay hungry, stay foolish'"

Immovable vs. Unstoppable

"Pare, just a little question: Who will win, unstoppable force or immovable object?"
17.10.19
12-06-2009

I received this three days ago from my friend, the awesome Raymond Lazaro :'D, and I was already in bed when I read this.
I answered in my (tired) head :'p : no one will win. Or, if someone has to win, then either or both.

First: Why no one? Because it is the clashing of two contradictory forces that has (for the simplification of this discussion) no other reason for it existence than to be one thing: in this case, either an unstoppable force or an immovable object. If both meet, then they will simply cease to exist. The unstoppable force did not stop, because its non-existence means there is nothing to move anyway; the immovable object died as well, as such, it did not go anywhere than where it was. (It's like asking the question: If God can do anything, can He make a rock that is so heavy that He cannot lift it? The question sort of negates itself.) Which brings us to the second scenario: either or both will win.

In this win-lose-or-win-win scenario, if the "success" in this "struggle" depends on the purpose of either, then either or both will win. How? If the will or purpose of the unstoppable force is to vanquish the immovable object, regardless of its own existence, then the unstoppable force wins; and vice versa.

This is just my take. I wonder what else it could be?
(Sorry, I don't any deep life lesson in this... contemplation. Nachts!)

--- ---


EDIT: 12-09-2009, 22:35 -- eureka!


I have some amazingly deep philosophically spiritual unforgettable life lesson about this:

If an absolutely stubborn guy clashes against an absolutely persistent girl about, for example, what shirt color the guy should wear, a blue or a red one, neither the blue shirt nor the red one would exist. :'D Easy. Neither won. But in this case, i.e., a social phenomena, both lost.

[In philosophy no feelings are hurt (they--feelings and philosophy--are merely concepts). But in the real world, people believe in feelings. People have feelings.]


... darn, does this make sense? ;'DDD

The Best Prayer

[... that I could think of.]

"God, take my freedom."










Have you prayed lately?




What have you prayed lately?

I am a Jedi

Yesterday, on my 29th birth anniversary, I took my oath in the Temple of the Jedi Order to become a real Jedi*.


This is no joke. This is not a mere fanboy or role-playing activity. This is me taking my path towards my destiny.

I am now a Jedi Padawan, a Jedi Apprentice. An apprentice of the Force.+
[+For 6 March 2009]

------------
*In the Order of the Jedi (Canada) though, I became a member on February 14th, to graduate on the same day in 2010. However, unlike in TOTJO, I as yet have taken no oath nor performed a ritual for membership, training or apprenticeship.

The Greatest Love of All

It's not so easy as "easy to achieve" wants you to believe >>12.17.2008, 17:34.

' tell you why later.

No To "World Peace"

[Tell you why next time.[12-10-2008]]

[12-12-2008]

What is "world peace"?

Is it the absence of war? No hunger? All in harmony, no unemployment? No one being beaten up, everyone telling everyone else his secrets? No hate all love?

No matter. No one, I believe, has defined it definitely. It's a combination of all of those above and more. There's something about "world peace" that we can't quite get a hold of.

Utopia, right? Paradise. Uh-huh. But, then, we also don't really know what these concepts are.

That's the trouble with "world peace". We don't know what it is. We know some parts of it, but we don't know it fully. And yet we ask for it. So in that regard,

"I want world peace"

becomes a futile statement. It's wishing for something that we don't know about.

It's like being a big boss in a big corporation, having your own big spiffy office and asking your assistant to make you a coffee, "and make it taste like paradise, please".

How do you make coffee that tastes like paradise? I mean, how absolutely -- in the sense that if anyone else tasted it, he will say, "Wow! Utopian coffee!"?

Can your assistant make it?

No.

Can you make it?

You can't.

And, THAT, for me, is the whole trouble with that "I want world peace" sort of thing. Yeah, sure, everyone can dream. Dream on. Dream on forever. (As if you know whether forever exists at all.)

But, then here's another thing: There are dreams that you can achieve and those that you cannot achieve. There are those that you are aiming for and there are those that you really don't care about whether they become true or not -- after all, dreams are free, right? Cheap. Happy thoughts in your head. Wow. It's like The Matrix* in your head. "Ignorance is bliss."

So, believe me, if you "want world peace", you don't care if it becomes true or not. Because, ultimately, you believe so very subconsciously that it's impossible. Because you can't define it.

Wishing for something to happen that you believe can't happen is to absolve yourself from the responsibility of making it happen.

Why?

Because, as I've said, you know that you can't make it happen.

And in that regard, it only means that you want others or someone else to do it for you.

"I wish for world peace" is like saying "Give me world peace" (whoever the recipient of that statement is) -- it's a command, not a statement for action.

So, okay, let's try to define "world peace" again.

It's a condition where everyone respects the rights of others. (support Amnesty International Philippines)

It's where no wife or child or husband is abused. (Stop Violence Against Women, Bantay Bata 163, MenWeb)

No one gets to be a victim of land mines. (go ahead, Adopt-A-Mine)

Guns are not used for homicide, murder, coercion... (Control Arms)

Everyone has decent shelter and living condition. (try Habitat For Humanity, Kiva, ABS-CBN Foundation)

Everyone respects the environment. (support Greenpeace)

There is no corruption in politics and business. (UN Global Compact on Transparency and Anti-Corruption, "No to Corruption" campaign by the UN Convention Against Corruption)

One religion for all, or all religion in harmony, or no religion at all. (practice Religious Tolerance)

Everyone eats well. (serve Food Not Bombs, Say No To GMOs!***)

+FEEL FREE TO ADD MORE+ :')

However you define world peace, if you want it, don't look too much at it as a whole. Look at it in parts. Dissassemble your previous vague or ambiguous definition of that concept and work on those parts instead.

We'll all be better off with you not wishing for world peace but making, say, everyone's hair beautiful all year round**.

So

Screw "World Peace".

'cos there's something better ;') -->DOING SOMETHING for world peace.

[Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe. (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra live-action movie slated for release in 2009 :'p)]

_________

*For those who haven't understood the concept of the movie The Matrix (as I haven't on my first viewing :'p), it's about the enslavement of humans by the machines. A war waged between humans and machines; humans cut off the machines' power supply, we were defeated, the machines discovered that our bodies are like batteries (Duracell). So they harvested us for power, created/cloned/grew us in their power farms, and in order for our psyche to not reject the whole setup, machines programmed a dreamworld and fed these into our brains, a dreamworld that we accept.

Rage against the machine.

**No complaints against my barber/hairstylist :'p Just an example. After all I've been my own hairstylist for over 6 monhts now. Hah!

***GMOs=Genetically Modified Organisms, a.k.a. GEO=Genetically Engineered Organisms, a.k.a. GM or GE. Present GMOs are a threat to health, to the environment, and to small farmers; and benefits only governments, large corporations, and other immoral or unethical individuals and organizations.