"I had to change a few times and pack. I thought - if I packed light, it'd look like I knew what I was doing. But I didn't know what I was doing, so I didn't know what to pack." Kay Chandler, Random Hearts.
John Lennon's quote reminds me of a Nanci Griffith song, whose refain is: It's just another morning here (it's morning) It's just another morning here It's just another morning here (it's morning) And it's a miracle that it comes around Every day of the year
And those lyrics remind me of this story from The Onion, about how David Bowie and his wife Iman spent their days.
This is the long version of the familiar quote by architect Louis Sullivan (via Wikipedia) "It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human, and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law." (italics in original)
"Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in." ― Leonard Cohen
Well, that's how some presidents are elected. But I do agree with the sentiment in part, because it reminds me of a piece of advice I received somewhere: "Every day, try to do something you think you might regret."
In keeping with unexpected, I just ran across this on Wikipedia: "In terms of pure workmanship, personally I don't like Harleys. I ride them because I'm in the club, and that's the image, but if I could I would seriously consider riding a Honda ST1100 or a BMW. We really missed the boat not switching over to the Japanese models when they began building bigger bikes. I'll usually say "Fuck Harley-Davidson." – Ralph "Sonny" Barger, Hell's Angel
"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." --Mark Twain
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
One of the most basic factors in sports is that winning becomes a habit, and losing is the same way. When failure starts to feel normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won't have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find you. Count on it. - Hunter S. Thompson
Which reminds me of another Mark Twain quote: "Truth is the most precious thing we have. So we must economize it."
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. - Einstein While the quote might sound stupid at first, he actually has a good point. Far too many people believe what they are taught, and never ask questions. The problem is that a lot of the things we are taught are wrong. Usually because we simply don't know any better. For instance, when I grew up, we learned that there were nine planets in the solar system. It has later been reduced to eight, as Pluto was classified as a dwarf planet. And that's the current status for most people. However, there are a lot of evidence pointing towards an as of yet unknown tenth planet in the solar system. Even better, archeologists have found a cylinder from the ancient Sumerians, dating back at least 4.500 years, that shows the solar system with 12 planets, including the sun and moon. If we count Pluto as one of them, that's 11 planets. So why did they have 12? That doesn't make any sense... except, as I said, scientists today have found plenty of evidence suggesting there might be a 12th planet in our solar system. But if you always believe what you are taught and don't ask questions, there's only eight planets, an that's that. You believe what you are taught, and never really learn anything.
[QUOTE="LadyErica, post: 1728114, member: 88531"So why did they have 12? That doesn't make any sense... [/QUOTE] Well, a lot of primitive cosmology doesn't make much sense. But twelve was thought to have all sorts of mystical significance .. witness twelve hours in a half-day, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months of the year in many calendars, and so on. And you've got your twelve apostles, and the twelve days of Christmas... well, I could go on and on, but the fact that you could evenly divide twelve by two, three, four, and six made it a number with a lot of mojo. That said, I agree with Einstein's sentiment. I remember that in high school we learned about the atom's structure ... protons, electrons, neutrons, and all that ... but modern chemistry and physics find that model hopelessly crude and even laughable. It has its uses, sure, but they told me in college that you have to forget it if you want to dig deeper. Somebody (Will Rogers, maybe?) said that you spend the second half of your life learning that the things you learned in the first half just ain't true. Einstein would agree, I think.
The controversy over the number of planets in the solar system with regard to Pluto and Ceres is one of linguistics though, not truth. Pluto was there before it was discovered, it continued to be there when it was regarded as a planet, and nothing has changed in the far reaches of the solar system regardless of which grunts a bunch of upright apes have decided to use. As I've seen pointed out elsewhere, the current definition of "planet" is fatally flawed in that it excludes all exoplanets. Furthermore, not only would the Earth not be a planet if it were in Pluto's region of the solar system (it's not big enough to clear an orbit that large), Pluto's presence rules out Neptune as a planet, since Neptune has thus far failed to clear its orbit of Pluto. In astrophysics, mass and trajectory are matters of truth, but most of the rest is just linguistics.
