there’s something strange and a little violent when big chain stores have signs on their walls that use the first person plural “we,” seemingly forcing these words into and through their mignons who toil around the signs.

why would you leave france and come to the US to work in an embassy behind two layers of bulletproof glass, sharing your office space with only two computers and a copy machine?

i continually wonder about these things. how do these workers remain sane? where do you place your faith and how do you take meaning from a job at kinko’s making copies for people? Maybe you have a band.

los angeles is not a place meant to be inhabited by human beings. it is built for automobiles, people are a second thought.

I will leave the wall paper life,
and run away to the foreign legion…
I will leave the wall paper life,
and run away to the foreign legion…

Run until your lungs are sore,
until you cannot feel it anymore.
Run until your lungs are sore,
until you find and open the door.

It wasn't until I had my own son that I realized a personality was just innate in a person. You can see it forming. In "The Road," the boy has been born into a world where morals and ethics are out the window, almost like a science experiment. But he is the most moral character. Do you think people start as innately good?

CM: I don't think goodness is something that you learn. If you're left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble. But people tell me from time to time that my son John is just a wonderful kid. I tell people that he is so morally superior to me that I feel foolish correcting him about things, but I've got to do something–I'm his father. There's not much you can do to try to make a child into something that he's not. But whatever he is, you can sure destroy it. Just be mean and cruel and you can destroy the best person.

via Cormac McCarthy on The Road – WSJ.com.

The Buddha taught that all such things are impermanent, arising and passing away, subject to change and that knowing this, not in a rational, but empirical manner, is wisdom. Saṅkhāra is often used in this first sense to describe the psychological conditioning (particularly the habit patterns of the unconscious mind) that gives any individual human being his or her unique character and make-up at any given time.

The last words of the Buddha were (English and Pali):

'Disciples, this I declare to you: All conditioned things are subject to disintegration – strive on untiringly for your liberation.' (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta)

handa'dāni bhikkhave āmantayāmi vo, vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā ti.

via Saṅkhāra – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The decades ahead will present many challenges to humanity. We'll need to find new sources of energy to power our lives without choking our air. We'll need to learn to recycle and reuse on a scale not yet imagined, and to balance the convenience of consumption with the wisdom of conservation. Perhaps most importantly, we'll need to develop ways of doing much, much more with our planet's limited supply of fresh water. We'll need to do all of this with a changing climate and a growing population—and with the one very limited planet we've had all along.

via EarthPulse 2010 – Essay: Straining Our Resources – National Geographic.

This song is awfully beautiful.

I’m just a student of this life, just like my father
I am a stranger to this heart, just like my mother
Oh, and brother you should know
That this heart’s still filled with sadness and regret
But i’m learning as i go
To forgive the things that i just can’t forget
Sometimes this heart is made of glass
And i often find myself
Living only in the past
Thinking mostly of myself
But i’ll believe you when you say
That these are things that time can heal
And this beating in my heart
Says this love we have is real
All of these wishes, i once lost, are now returning
All of the demons, i have fought, are slowly turning
Oh, and brother you should know
There is no one in this world who feels no pain
And i’m learning as i go
To accept the things that i’ve no power to change
All of these streets are heading out
And this song’s no longer blue
And although nothing’s figured out
Looks like we’ve both made it through
If there were one thing i could ask
I would ask you where you’ve been
’cause i still wonder where you were
When this whole big ship sank in

- Mason Jennings

i think i’ve got a new approach to this: if i take and reference “my depression” as this irrational, attached creature, maybe he’ll be outed and shamed out of existence. if i am constantly aware of this lurking pothole in my mind, perhaps it can be avoided and i can squelch the floods before they gush. i need a little man on my shoulder to box me on the ears when he gets out of line. the monster can and will be defeated.

i think this marks the realization that it is no longer my life that needs to change but simply the way i go about it.

picture me a salmon winding through the dusty sunlit waters. heavy with salt and the specks of planktons the waters plunge down, thousands of glimmering stars falling around me. i am wandering, vaguely spinning towards the front.

i am in the guest room of my own house. i have sold my car and i’m looking for a ride. to? out there.

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson Win Nobel in Economic Science – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

Ostrom = baller.