The principles of functional design for sustainability are unique to Permaculture design
Sobre Bill Mollison, o pai da permacultura.
"Permaculture design is the first system of conscious functional design in the world"
Bill Mollison
The principles of functional design for sustainability are unique to Permaculture design
"Permaculture design is the first system of conscious functional design in the world"
"A sustainable system is any system that in it's life time can produce more energy than it takes to establish and maintain it (the second law of thermodynamics)"
Bill Mollison
Tudo sobre permacultura, aqui
The Feldenkrais Method: "If you know what you're doing, you can do what you want"
"Madness is doing the same and expecting other results"
[anónimo]
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
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
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
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.
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)."lower
lower
upper
LOWER
"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) |
Oliver Sacks
Ignore Your Feelings
Khazan: One thing that’s interesting in the love
chapter, it seems like sex is not necessarily seen as the highest
priority in a relationship. I wonder how you reached that conclusion and
whether you think that’s controversial at all in your field? A lot of
the messages we get about relationships are that once you get everything
figured out sexually, the whole ship rights itself.
Michael: I
think that expectation is really dangerous. A partnership with all that
life throws at you, and even more stuff that gets thrown at you when
you have a kid. It's really hard, and you're tired and angry, and if in
addition to that you expect the feelings to be positive and loving and
warm, you just feel like a horrible loser.
Whereas if you've gone into with more common sense, and a sense that
this is really somebody you want to be with, but you’ve also checked
them out, and they’re solid, and they’re not using substances, and they
want to go the same way you do, and if you want to have kids, that
that’s what they want too, and that they're good in a pinch and good in
an emergency—in other words, you've thought a bit about the job
description, and the values somebody has to really be a good partner in
life. Then you're much more likely 10 or 20 years later to really love
them.
I've seen people through a lot of divorces. Divorces never
seem to be because “I fell out of love with you.” Divorces are much more
partnership issues: “I love you but I can't stand the way you've spent
us into the poorhouse, or the way you never do your job, or you’re
always out at night drinking, or a certain way you never accept me and
you never did, I thought you would someday.” It all has to do with
partnership issues.
Sarah: People also, over the course of long
relationships—their interests change, and their interest in sex changes.
If you are with someone that you have vetted in this way, that you know
is reliable, that you know you can trust in certain ways, that you have
a more substantial connection with, [then] if the sex fades you have
less to worry about. Sex and attraction are two more things you really
can’t control. Especially when you get older. It's part of your
physiology that really isn’t in your hands.
Holding yourself
responsible and your relationship responsible for having the same
chemistry you once had when you first met in your 20s, and you’re now in
your 50s, is really not fair.
Mais, aqui
Empathy and critical thinking
"But I think if we could turn the dial a bit, and try to take what the
philosopher Henry Sidgwick called “the point of view of the universe”,
and look from above, and realize that we are not special, none of us
are, I think it would just cause a transformation."
"That something can be used for good isn’t necessarily a knockdown argument for it."
"Here I draw a lot from Buddhism, which focuses on compassion and
kindness, loving kindness, as they call it, but rejects empathy because
it’s a poor moral guide. And I think there’s a lot of evidence
suggesting that they’re right"
"I taught a course called “Habits of Mind” last semester with a friend of
mine, Tamar Gendler, who is a philosopher, and we explored questions
such as the relationship between emotions and reason, and what it is to
live a good life."
"I think we should really discourage this sort of empathic engagement
when it comes to making moral decisions. I think we should focus on
something like compassion, on getting people to care more for others
without putting ourselves in their shoes. I think, for instance, there’s
some evidence that when it comes to being a doctor or nurse, a police
officer or therapist, that empathetic engagement leads to burn-out.
Imagine if you’re dealing with severely ill children, and you felt their
pain all the time, and the pain of their parents—you wouldn’t be able
to do that job for very long. It would kill you. What you need is to
care for them, but have some distance. Pull back. That’s what I’m
arguing for."
Aqui
Paul Bloom's Lab
