What has this to do with khukuris? Everything!

Rusty

Rusty

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Don't know where this quote came from, but it might get some interesting observations going.

" We are all faced with great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
 
My own response to the above is to quote William James on the criteria of truth:

CONGRUENCE
USEFULNESS
LUMINOSITY

Why? Because those three things tell me that truths tend to show a pattern that is constant, crosses all kind of lines, and can be transfered from a truth about khukuris to a truth about a way to live life.

Looked at that way, it does have everything to do with khukuris. Now HELP!!! Someone bail me out.
 
Once again proof one should not post after ones mind has gone to bed.
 
Excellent quote! That is just the quote for me! Its hard to remember that that is true when faced with tough challenges--I'll have to write that down and post it in my office.

See now this is the kind of post I was talking about in the thread about favorite stories about Rusty! It makes you really think: First I think Rusty's crazy, then I realize he's not, then I feel really stupid cause I can't figure out the post, then I decide again that Rusty IS crazy, then I realize its a little of all three!!
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Seriously though, keep up the good work!

I vote Rusty in as "HI Intellect Officer",(Or HIIO) because his posts force us to "think outside the box" and prevent our heads from going soft
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Here's another quote I like by Gordon
Parks:

"The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and the unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed."

[This message has been edited by MauiRob (edited 05-16-2001).]
 
I have to get in on this with a story my dad told me when I entered the big old world.

There was once a young sparrow who was out in the barnyard freezing to death. He shivered and cheeped and cheeped and shivered until the farmer’s cow came along and deposited a big warm, smelly old cow pie right on top of him. This offended the poor sparrow who thought that life was hard enough without someone crapping on him too so even though he was now warm in his nice toasty cow pie, he cheeped even louder. Along came the cat, who plucked him out of the cow pie and gobbled him up.

You can end this with your choice of two morals:

Moral one: Not everyone who craps on you is your enemy and the fact that someone pulls you out of it doesn’t make them your friend.

Moral two: When you are up to your eyebrows in s___, keep your mouth shut.


 
While we're free-associating here, that quote brought to mind something that Niels Bohr, the physicist, said. I may not get it word for word, but the gist was,

"The opposite of a small truth is simply a falsehood. The opposite of a Great Truth is likely to be another Great Truth."

The reason I bring this up is that I never much liked James's idea of the truth. A little too mushy and relativistic for me, because I was focused on little truths. Lots of things can be useful but not really TRUE, and that's what bothered me about James's definition (and his philosophy, for that matter). When I read this quote from Bohr, I started thinking about it and found it to be right, as for example . . .

"We are all faced with impossible situations brilliantly disguised as great opportunities."

Sounds right, too, huh? I think James's criteria are better for detecting the Great Truths than the little ones.

What interested me about this is that, while the little truths inform, Great Truths illuminate. So Great Truths, by their nature, bring understanding more than knowledge.

'Course, the trouble is that, while they illuminate, the Great Truths don't obey the same laws as the little ones, like Bohr pointed out. Which is why the Great Truths require a different faculty to grasp and use. I think it's the difference between wisdom and intelligence.

The Great Truths, I think, operate on something like what was called "narrative truth," (term I hate, but anyway) in which the standard of the "truth" of the narrative is whether it ties its elements together in a consistent way and makes an organized and understandable whole out of it. Of course, any number of narratives can be constructed from a set of facts, and just like the Great Truths, a completely conflicting story can still have that ability to put things together and help you understand different aspects of the facts.

Lots of times I think we get into trouble when intelligent people who lack wisdom conflict with each other over two sets of Great Truths, thinking that they conflict by some syllogistic laws and "the world ain't big enough for both of us." Religious wars get started over things like that.

Ok, boys & goils, pop a can of your favorite cold beverage and discuss. I'm off to terrorize some vegetation.

And Rusty . . . damn good to have you back, chief.
 
Rusty's quote reminds me of one from a friend of mine:

"Someday, I would like to have a blessing that's not in disguise."


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-Cougar :{)
Use of Weapons
 
Cougar, I want to agree, but the most gratifying experiences of my life have been those I qualified to share with someone going thru hell by having gone thru my own hell beforehand.

While I'm not of the Roman rite, Henry J. M. Nouwen suggests that if we wish to be used to the fullest, we consider how he elements of the Eucharist or Communion are prepared:

First, they are taken, set aside.
Second, they are blessed.
Third, they are broken.
Fourth, they are given.

And somehow in this process, a binding together - a unity of all, occurs.

When I allow myself to be emptied of me, when I accept and submit to the will of Something Greater than me, when I am like the elements, taken, blessed, broken, and given, I become a channel of his peace.

This is only my own discription, my own understanding, of how it happens. Mohd, Yvsa, Uncle Bill, and others all have their own probably quite different understandings of what it means to them. God, Allah, Yahweh aser Yihweh, the Great Spirit... but somehow something reaches through them all to give comfort to those in need.

Being able to give and touch others, even in the absence of self, is the essence, the fulfillment of life to me.

Now to get back to my plan to market mace/pepper spray in every hospital so no patient need be deprived of dignity and protection from the nursing staff.

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"Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other." Mark Twain

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What with the running amok talk, I wasn't quite brave enough to bring that up meself, Uncle.

Khukuris and mace and pistols, O My!
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