Believe, Beleft, Below

GOD: A SKETCH IDEA

Subject: Good evening.

God: You're welcome, my son.

S: I beg your pardon?

G: You said, 'Good evening,' and I said, 'You're welcome.' I do the best I can.

S: Excuse me – you're God?

G: Bloody right, my son, the Holy Gaffer Himself. What's the matter with you, my son?

S: Nothing, it's just that…

G: Spit it out, mate. I can't liege around here indefinably, you know. My eyE is on flaming sparrow, my son. Do you realize I got to keep my minces peeled on a billion five hundred and thirty-three sparrows? Even they come in a hundred and fifty-odd varieties, that's not to mention all the hippos, badgers, parrots, water voles, et cetera, et cetera, what I created in my infinite wisdom and all. What's on your mind, son?

S: Nothing, it's just that I expected God to be something like… well, you know, like the illustrations in the Bible.

G: You expect me to go pouncing around with whiskers and a white frock, then? You think I'm hippie pooftah, mate?

S: No, it's just…

G: Only you don't want to get leery, son. I could smite you, if I so chose. I could give you a right smiting, son, plague of bleeding locusts… frogs and whatnots… In my infinite wisdom I could smite you with leprosy… so watch it.

S: No, it's just I imagined God would be…

G: More upper class, then? Well, I'm a working-class God, my son, built the bloody world in six days, I did, hand-built and all, put in every star with my own hands, craftsmanship. You don't get that kind of work these days… Now, be on your way before whatnots show up, my son.

Marty Feldman, in eyE Marty

Oh death I'm not ready

Why are there not water-babies?

"Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for she only asked the same question over again. "But why are there not water-babies?" I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man, and therefore ought to have known that he couldn't know; and that he was a logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a universal negative—I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply: "Because there ain't."
Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies

Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby

"But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and low, such things as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from pure love.

And when he woke she was telling the children a story. [...] And he listened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and when he woke, the lady was nursing him still."
Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies

FOREVER

Going through life snapping at each new NOW,
Making good memories when we get old,
Wanting to make sure it is well stocked for looking back,
There today, here tomorrow each new father his son told

Living is an ephemeral art,
To die should be our sole adventure,
For life is as brief as a buck fly's fart
But death is something we have forever.

Marty Feldman

Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid

Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee

"And there came over the lady's face a very curious expression — very solemn, and yet very, very sweet. And she looked up and away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at something far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom thought for the moment that she did not look ugly at all. And no more she did; for she was like a great many people who have not a pretty feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little children's hearts to them at once; because though the house is plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and good spirit is looking forth.

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment. And the strange fairy smiled too and said:

"Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?"

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.

"And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do. And then I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world..."

Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies

Wu-wei or Trying Not to Try

"Let’s begin with a little exercise. Go down the column of words below, and as quickly as possible read each word silently and then say out loud either “upper” or “lower,” depending on whether the word itself is written in upper-or lowercase letters.

UPPER
lower
lower
upper
LOWER

Unless you are an alien cyborg from Alpha Centauri, you were probably cruising along until you reached the last two, where you stumbled a bit and took longer to say “lower” while reading upper, and then “upper” while reading LOWER. That slight catch as you began to talk—that feeling of needing to stop yourself, to not read the word but instead focus on its case—has been referred to as the oomph that is the hallmark of conscious will or effort. A task that presents someone with this kind of mismatch between the meaning of a word and its physical appearance is commonly referred to as a “Stroop task,” after the American psychologist who published a paper on the effect in the 1930s, originally using words printed in incompatible colors (for example, the word green printed in red ink). The Stroop task is a classic example of what’s called a cognitive control or executive control task—that is, a situation where the cold, conscious mind (System 2) has to step in and override automatic, effortless processes (System 1)."

"Armed with this information, we can now see how a brain on wu-wei might function. We can even get a reasonably precise picture of it, thanks to some recent neuroscientific work on wu-wei–like states. A clever study by Charles Limb and Allen Braun peered into what’s happening in the minds of professional jazz pianists in action. They designed a special, nonferromagnetic keyboard that could be taken inside the fMRI scanner, which is basically a huge magnet. The researchers then had them play in two different conditions. In the first, “Scales,” they were required to play, over and over, a one-octave C scale. In the “Jazz Improv” condition, they were asked to remain in the same key but improvise a melody based upon a composition they’d previously been asked to memorize."

Aqui

On the move with Oliver Sacks

 

 

Oliver Sacks in Greenwich Village in 1961, on his new BMW R60 (Photograph: Douglas White)

“I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts”
Oliver Sacks