burnsbyrne wrote:I gave up political and religious discussions years ago when I realized that I no longer had the will- and/or brain-power to waste on topics that were way too confusing for me to understand, and that I was usually apathetic about anyway. So now I vote my conscience, avoid evangelists and try to treat others with respect. I do still have issues that I feel strongly about but I see no reason to try to convince others to believe the way I do. After all, I might be wrong.
Mike
You might be wise...
I think you have the grasp that so many don't get... "... I vote my conscience, avoid evangelists and try to treat others with respect"
anniemcu
--- "You are what you do, not what you claim to believe." -Gene A. Statler
--- "Olé to you, none-the-less!" - Elizabeth Gilbert
--- http://www.sassafrassgrove.com
...I've just accepted the fact that life IS complicated, but the trick is not to dwell on the negative stuff when life's bad ('cause no matter how bad, it can't last forever), and not to take it for granted when life's treatin' you good ('cause the good stuff doesn't last forever either).
"...patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings" - "Sweetheart Like You" by Bob Dylan
Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
cskinner wrote:As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
Yes! So take a nap on Sundays, when in real doubt and confusion, make a pot of tea and sit for a while and stare out the window and taste every sip of the tea as it was your first sip or your last, do breathing exercises and concentrate on the rhythm of breathing. Done?
See it wasn't so complicated?
Everybody has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
Indeed things are complicated. Like Weeks said, something as silly as buying a car should not be as complicated as it is.
But for me, when it comes to organizations, politics, and issues, I will take the apparent complication.
Things have always been complicated; it cannot be otherwise with human beings - Shakespeare was brilliant because he knew this and used it. If things seemed less complicated before, it was probably because we didn't have the whole story. Present only one side of things and it is very uncomplicated. With the truth... or at least with more information... comes complication.
Why do we have more information? For one, supposedly we have an independent media (although that's questionable). I might also suggest that we as a people are somewhat less naive, less trusting so we question more and find what we did not look for before.
So I will take the complication because it means I am better informed. And being better informed will hopefully mean that I can make better, although not easy, choices.
avanutria wrote:When I leave for UK in September I will have some office and business-casual clothing that I am not taking with me. I remember reading about a charity that takes that sort of thing for needy women who are job hunting. Does anyone know of a place like that where I can send those clothes in the fall?
Nothing uncomplicates my life like trying to figure out a new tune. Everything else just seems to drop away for a while. Mind you, I think I'm a hedonist.
I cried when I had no bread
Then I saw a man who had no milk.
I cried when I had no shoes
Then I saw a man who had apricots for ears.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat today
Teach him to fish and you can stay home tomorrow.
peeplj
I think of abortion, pros and cons,
And the NRA and the debate on guns,
The Drug War's growing prison population,
And other issues that divide a nation,
The charities that aren't charitable,
Some preachers that are reprehensible;
To me the message is clear as sent:
Fanatics harm the causes that they represent.
Were you guys rapping?
Tony
http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/newspage.htm Officially, the government uses the term “flap,” describing it as “a condition, a situation or a state of being, of a group of persons, characterized by an advanced degree of confusion that has not quite reached panic proportions.”
DaleWisely wrote:I sent out notification of a new issue of the newsletter today. It included an announcement that I was going to send all July profits from cafepress.com to charity. I picked Unicef.
Within a hour, I had heard from several people that Unicef supports abortion.
Even though I think Unicef does a lot of great stuff, there are a lot of charities and I'm just not up for the grief. So, I quickly changed to another charity.
This makes me sad.
This is not a thread about abortion. It's a thread about how complicated life is. If you want to tell me something about Unicef and abortion, email me. Don't post that here.
THanks.
Well, if Gandhi were alive and played the whistle, I suppose
he would have written one of those letters. He
didn't think things were so complicated. Best
When I can afford it, I support charities even when they don't totally agree with my own views.
anniemcu
--- "You are what you do, not what you claim to believe." -Gene A. Statler
--- "Olé to you, none-the-less!" - Elizabeth Gilbert
--- http://www.sassafrassgrove.com