RSSFiling a complaint at the janitor of cosmos might be hazardous.
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The Janitor of Cosmos
Detlef
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Video: Your Life
Detlef
Your life is not on a track like a train. It sails through the air like a bird.
May you all sail with ease in the winds of the world!
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Letters and meaning
Detlef
What’s the meaning of a letter or a number? We are so fixed on the meaning of writing that we tend to forget the lettering over it. Knowing the letters we forget about them. Not knowing them – we see them very clearly, as in this picture. We see the message “loves you”, which doesn’t make any “sense” as such – so we are able to concentrate on the appearance of the letters, on their “gestalt”:
By Detlef.This photograph of a graffiti on a wall leaves room for the contemplator’s mind to resonate according to its own pattern – not necessarily the pattern of the meaning of letters or numbers:
By Detlef.The inverse function of this approach would be to try to find meaning in nature. These drops on a blade of grass could signify a punch-card code or a Morse alphabet:
By Detlef. -
Sun of dignity in the cancer ward
Detlef
By “Detlef.Sitting in the corridor of the cancer ward I watched a woman in a bathrobe arduously moving to the window with a walker. She remained there in silence looking at the sunset. Suddenly she straightened up in her walker and said: “Ah, the sun, the sun. The beautiful sun!”I was deeply moved to witness so much dignity.
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Jeb
Perspective is a curious thing. I suppose learning it the easy way is preferred, but I’m finding it rarely works that way.
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Detlef
Jeb, what is easy, what is hard? Sometimes the “easy” life is the really hard one. When you know you won’t see the sun that often any more – you might look at it in a more appreciative way. I don’t know.
What impressed me was how this woman, whose body was so beaten down, had such an amazingly stong spirit. Not concentrating on her misery, which was evident – but on the beauty in front of her.
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Nothing to say
Detlef
I’m glad I found a way to embed my videos via YouTube. I hope all problems are solved now and so I’ll use YouTube as a publishing platform for videos henceforth. If I have anything to publish or to say.
Although not having anything to say doesn’t necessarily mean you have to remain silent:
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Jeb
You’re a better man than I, DC…I’ve not had much at all to say lately. And the result, for me, is silence. Thanks for the reminder that it’s not necessary to take things so seriously, and that I needn’t say something deep or remarkable every time I speak.
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Detlef
Come on, no one is a better man in your shoes than you are – and in most other shoes, too
You groove. You could talk about the Z section of the Denver phonebook – would be grooving still.
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The Next Level
Detlef
Rakshith Rao tweets the question wether or not to believe in a supreme being controlling our lives. I wonder whether such a being would know or even need the category “control”? What is there to control if you are a – or even THE – supreme being?
By Detlef.
Ryan writes about us human beings “blending in and standing out”. I like Ryans perspective because it makes me wonder: would we really be standing out regarded from the level of a supreme being? We are the same biological concept as the zebra, the frog, the fly. Do we really act that differently? OK: we have technology, we use artefacts we transform our environment. So do beavers. Homo Sapiens is more successful in the sense that we transform our whole planet – in the brief moment of our blossoming as a species.Could we even recognize a superior being? Superior regarding what? Intelligence? Knowledge? Those are all human concepts that wouldn’t necessarily apply to a superior being. From the point of view of the chimpanzee Homo Sapiens is an inferior chimp. Man is a very inferior zebra, an inferior dog. No wonder all other life forms seem to be inferior to us – we seem inferior to them, too.
Homo Sapiens stands out in one regard: we can kill all chimpanzees, all zebras, all whales – if it pleases us. But if there would be a virus able to kill our species – would we regard that as a superior being?
So there remains technological superiority, like in the science fiction novels. A species able to travel to earth from their planet would necessarily be superior to Homo Sapiens. A species able to build a noiseless car that’s powered by sunlight.
But “technology” is a very human concept, too. I believe – and I hope – the next level will have to do with the universal concepts of love and kindness.
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Ways to happiness are galore
Detlef
A video about the many ways to happiness.
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Made by Homo Sapiens
Detlef
Sometimes I feel like the whole universe might be drawn into the abyss created by Homo Sapiens and our use of technology. – But then again I like to look at human artifacts as being part of creation. We never stand opposite to nature. We are always a part of it. We never step out of creation.
By Detlef.-
Ryan
I like that image–it blends but doesn’t. And that’s how I feel about our relationship to nature… blending in but standing out just enough.
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Detlef
Hi Ryan,
from a human perspective we are standing out. Do we stand out from the zebra perspective? Just one more predator. Do we stand out from the perspective of an alien higher intelligence? Would we be able to recognize a higher intelligence, “intelligence” being a human concept?Thank you for making me wonder
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Eternal exchange
Detlef
“The human soul is like water: coming down from the sky, rising up to the sky it has to go down to earth again: an eternal exchange.”
My free translation of J.W. Goethe’s poem “Gesang der Geister ueber den Wassern”
By Detlef.
Alas: we should be careful with the word “eternal”, as even the source of all energy on earth, our sun, has a past, a present, a future – and an end, as this fine work by my friend Tim Grosvenor shows.
Or might even the end of the sun be just a passage within the “eternal” circle of life, the start of something fresh and new like a clear drop of water?
Waiting for sausage rain
Detlef
My dog is relaxing – but not pondering the blueness of the sky: she is a firm believer that some day there will be sausages raining from above.
By Detlef.
Jeb 8:27 pm on June 28, 2009 Permalink |
DC, you are a master of many mediums. I love it. A teacher yet again…
Henie 9:05 pm on June 29, 2009 Permalink |
Amazingly creative you are! I love it! I second Jeb! :~) You are awesome!