Meet Joe Black

A few of my favorite quotes from the movie Meet Joe Black 

William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) to his daughter Susan (Claire Forlani) about love …

William: “I want you to get swept away. I want you to levitate. I want you to <pause> sing with rapture and dance like a dervish.”

Susan: “Oh that’s all.”

William: “Yeah. Be deliriously happy. Or at least leave yourself open to be.”

Susan: “Ok, be deliriously happy. I shall do my utmost.”

William: “I know it’s a cornball thin, but love is passion. Obsession. Someone you can’t live without. I say fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head and you listen to your heart. … The truth is honey, there’s no sense living your live without this. To make the journey and not fall deply in love. Well, you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

Susan: “Bravo”

William: “Oh, you’re tough.”

Susan: “I’m sorry, ok. Give it to me again, the short version this time.”

William: “Stay open, who knows, lightning could strike.”

Another between William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) and Joe Black (Brad Pitt) who plays death.

Joe: I don't care Bill. I love her.

William: How perfect for you - to take whatever you want because it pleases you. That's not love.

Joe: Then what is it?

William: Some aimless infatuation which, for the moment, you feel like indulging - it's missing everything that matters.

Joe: Which is what?

William: Trust, responsibility, taking the weight for your choices and feelings, and spending the rest of your life living up to them. And above all, not hurting the object of your love.

Joe: So that's what love is according to William Parrish?

William: Multiply it by infinity, and take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about.

Silent Gifts

In the midst
of the scrutiny
and hopes of
thousands, silent
gifts spring forth
The body electric
faith stands eternal

-- Fierce Wolf

Dreams

Will you engage the fire
and dying breath of twilight?
Into another world
To fulfill a journey
Inspire dreams and provoke them
    push, prod, pull,
        yell, scream, cry, laugh
            Smile
In sweet ecstasy of death
    and glory of a new day

-- Fierce Wolf

Paradox, Science, and Taoism

The Tao gives birth to one

one gives birth to two

two gives birth to three

three gives birth to ten thousand things

-- Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, verse 42

This first part of the 42nd verse of the Tao Te Ching is absolutely remarkable to me. It is such a precise picture of the universe and yet completely abstract at the same thing.

If you look at it in terms of classic teachings, the Tao can be understood to be the nothingness beyond anything we know with our mind, beyond anything we understand. The one can be understood to be the source energy, the single energy underlying, cradling everything; from everything derives from. The two paints the vision of the polarities that exist in this world – masculine and feminine, light and dark, north and south, sun and moon. Yin and yang in all its amazing forms. It’s also all the paradox that is all around, with each paradox falling apart and settling back into the one the two births from. The three is stepping stone to ten thousand, or the metaphorical infinite. That is everything that exists, in all its forms.

As in any birth, or any definition of birth we understand as humans, there is a lineage and connection back to the parents, grandparents, and so on. In one sense, the Tao is how we can understand that everything remains one and connected, even as there are distinct forms. There is one of those great paradoxes – the distinct forms of each of us or the distinct idea of each rock, plant, and so on, and still it’s connected to everything else.

The word connect, or interconnect, is one of the resolvers of the paradox. To be connected, or interconnected, implies both that there are at least two objects or people that are distinct and yet by being connected they become one! Try to wrap your head around that one – or better not to and just let it be.

If you are more of a scientific bent, you might understand the universe as born from a Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory implies a nothingness before anything (the Tao). Then there is a single entity, a single energy that explodes; the single energy is similar to the one. And as in human conception, cells splits, and that one energy has split apart into two, now we’re at the two above. As the Big Bang progress, then three, then ten thousand, or infinite.

The scientific bent also has wonderful paradoxes, like the dual-nature of light. Depending on what experiment that’s set up, light can either be detected as a wave or as a particle. Wow, that’s wild. Or consider Eintein’s famous equation E=mc2 which says that energy (E) and matter (m) are different forms of the same thing! Then there’s electromagnetic waves which are everywhere being released and absorbed by atoms all the time. Those waves the connection between everything. All atoms, and subatomic particles within, are constantly connecting and interacting.

Reality, as we know it in this universe, can be described in so many ways, from the sublime description of the Tao Te Ching from thousands of years ago which contains so much in so few words, to the deep and philosophical scientific inquiry to understand something of what we experience and put equations to that.

Just some of my random musings about science and philosophy and how they may not be as difference as we like to believe.

My Slow Neighbors

About six weeks ago I moved into a new neighborhood. It’s a little removed from the city, very quiet, and has great views of the mountains. On the small gravel side road I live on now there are perhaps 10 houses total.

The house has a wonderful front porch facing north and west with amazing views of the mountains which are just a few miles away. I’ve been eating out there, reading, sitting, writing – enjoying being outside. With so many neighbors, when a car rolls by, it’s pretty obvious. I’ve noticed one of my neighbors in particular. They drive an older, red, Chevy or Pontiac sedan. The car itself stands out a bit, but what’s more evident is the speed. They seem to crawl down the road, you can almost hear each rock as the tires roll over the gravel roadway. I’ve seen this car perhaps a dozen times and have always been surprised. Most people are in such a rush, it’s unusual to see someone driving so slowly.

I’ve always tried to keep a reasonable speed in neighborhoods in side streets, after all I want to respect the people that live there, and hope that if they ever drive down my street they might show the same respect. So it is here in my own neighborhood, I’ve kept my speed on the gravel road pretty slow. Lately though, I’ve noticed my speed getting slower, almost mimicking my neighbors. For the few times it was unconscious and I didn’t realize I was doing it, yet something stuck with me.

I’m now a regular creeper on my road. It’s become a ritual of sorts. Leaving home, it’s a transition from the quiet, settled space of home to the rest of the world. Coming home, I turn off the main road and immediately slow down and begin the passage back from the fullness of life to the peace of being home. My street isn’t long, perhaps a couple hundred meters from the main road to my driveway and yet those twenty or thirty seconds have an unusual meaning and depth to them. A slowing down, noticing my neighborhood, feeling my soul settle, and then reaching home.

So this evening as I write from my porch in the evening air, I want to thank my neighbors in the red car.

The Mindset List

Beloit College is a small college in southern Wisconsin. 15 years ago Beloit College started a tradition called the Mindset List. The idea was to provide the professors and staff at Beloit College with an idea of what the incoming freshmen class knew about the world, that could be particularly different from the staff who could be twice or three times the age of these new students. Sort of a generational difference guide if you will.

Here’s an example for the class of 2015, most of whom were born in 1993 – music has always been available as a free download. The idea of downloadable music is still that new and yet it has become so pervasive so quickly.

Here’s another from the class of 2008, most of whom were born in 1986 – the Energizer bunny has always been going, and going, and going. And still is!

The lists start with the class of 2002 and go to the current class of 2015. They are a remarkable study of how things change, how quickly they change, how they become part of everyday life so readily, and even how quickly things are gone.

The full set of lists is here at Beloit College – take a trip down memory lane and enjoy!

Laughing at it all

"Since everything is like an 'apparition,'
Perfect in just being 'What It Is' -- as it is.
Having nothing to do with 'good' or 'bad,'
'acceptance' or 'rejection' --
You might as well just burst out laughing!"

-- Tibetan master Longchenpa, fourteenth century Tibet

Patience

Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.

Shams Tabrizi