Tag Archives: Quotable

Life After Death

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“A must read for everyone who will die.” That’s how one reviewer describes Deepak Chopra’s “Life After Death.” I ordered the book after seeing Dr. Chopra on The Colbert Report. The title pretty much describes the book which got a fair amount of highlighter (my measure of good non-fiction). Here’s one graf from page 239:

“In spiritual terms the cycle of birth and rebirth is a workshop for making creative leaps of the soul. The natural and the supernatural are not doing different things but are involved in transformation on separate levels. At the moment of death the ingredients of your old body and old identity disappear. Your DNA and everything it created devolve back to their simple component parts. Your memories dissolve back into raw information. None of this raw material is simply recombined to produced a slightly altered person. To produce a new body capable of making new memories, the person who emerges must be new. You do not acquire a new soul, because the soul doesn’t have content. It’s not “you” but the center around which “you” coalesces, time after time. It’s your zero point.”

I’ve never studied or researched reincarnation, but I’ve always had a curiosity about and openess to the idea. In 1988 I wrote:

“As I think about the idea of a past existence, I feel a fondness for this “earlier me”. A sense of gratitude for whatever spiritual progress he was able to achieve. At the same time, I feel a sense of anticipation or expectation for my “next life”. And some responsibility to that future self. I’d like to move him (or her?) along as far as I can on this “cosmic lap.” To move him closer to…a perfect consciousness? Nirvana?”

“Mixed in with all of that is a sense of relief that I don’t have to complete everything in this lifetime. This is not the only shot I’ll get. And this awareness is vital because we all know –consciously or subconsciously– that we won’t “get it all done” in a spiritual sense. We hope (and work) for progress but a single” lifetime seems hopelessly short.”

Upon rereading the full post, I’m struck by how close I got (to Dr. Chopra’s explanation), given my complete ignorance.

I confess I could never stretch my common sense and logic (and faith?) around many of the stories in the Bible. And my recent read of Richard Dawkins’ case for atheism (The God Delusion) didn’t convince me. But I really enjoyed Life After Death and will read more by Dr. Chopra.

“Why local media companies should fear Google”

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This post by Terry Heaton made me flash on a Google search page with a “Pages from Missouri” button (or any of the states where we have networks):

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it easily accessible to everyone. This ought to be the mission of every local media company, for one day we will find a similar button on Google regardless of the zip code from which we are logging in.”

Will Google be able to cover state news (with audio, video, stills,etc) better than our networks? Blasphemy I know, but it doesn’t seem wise to assume that our little corner of the news/media world will be untouched by the changes happening all around us.

Bruce Sterling: The Future of the Internet

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“The future of the Internet lies not with institutions but with individuals. Low-cost connections will proliferate, encouraging creativity, collaboration, and telecommuting. The Net itself will recede into the background. If you’re under 21, you likely don’t care much about any supposed difference between virtual and actual, online and off. That’s because the two realms are penetrating each other; Google Earth mingles with Google Maps, and daily life shows up on Flickr. Like the real world, the Net will be increasingly international and decreasingly reliant on English.

“The Internet crawled out of a dank atomic fallout shelter to become the Mardi Gras parade of my generation. It was not a bolt of destructive lightning; it was the sun breaking through the clouds.” — Science fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling in his final column for Wired

This idea resonates with me because I have very little faith or confidence in institutions… and a lot of confidence in (some) individuals. And the Net allows me to find and connect with individuals in ways institutions can not.

Scott Adams happy to be greedy capitalist

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“I’m happy that lots of people vote. The system would break down otherwise, and short of me being the dictator, I can’t think of a better system than imaginary democracy masking the naked ambitions of greedy capitalists. It sounds bad when you say it, but frankly I don’t have a better idea. I’m just happy I have a chance to be one of those greedy capitalists myself. Now go vote me some tax breaks.”

— Scott Adams

Why the asterisk is “The Most Obscene Letter”

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“Naked naughty words can destroy your brain and also society as a whole. However – and one would think this is obvious – It’s completely safe to THINK naughty words. And it’s safe to cause other people to think naughty words. But if you spell those naughty words without the asterisk loin cloth to protect your victims, you’re a danger to society. I know this to be true because I heard it from lots of people who have sh*t-for-brains.”

— Scott Adams explains why the asterisk is “The Most Obscene Letter”

When I write “WTF”… the little voice in your head says “What the fuck?” If I type “*ss hole,” you hear “ass hole.” But they’re just words. They can’t really hurt you. If you don’t believe me, read Adam’s post.

Scott Adams: Knowing when to quit

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“You usually have to try a bunch of things before luck has an opportunity to find you. So how do you know when to bail out of a losing idea? … I heard a useful rule about predicting success during my (failed) attempt at creating a hit Dilbert animated TV show: If everyone exposed to a product likes it, the product will not succeed. The reason that a product “everyone likes” will fail is because no one “loves” it. The only thing that predicts success is passion, even if only 10% of the consumers have it. … Great ideas catch on immediately, and passionately, at least with the early adopters.”

— Scott Adams

Early in the game

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31.4% of Americans don’t have internet access; 88% of all users have never heard of RSS; 59% of American households have zero iPods in them; 30% of internet users in the US use a modem; Detroit (one million people) has six Starbucks.

Seth is reminding us “all the growth and opportunity and the fun is at the leading edge, at the place where change happens” and we’re living on a never-ending adoption curve. For those of us in media, who depend on advertising… I’d rather be early to the this dance than late.

Bonus Quote: Doing it for free

“…pioneers are almost never in it for the money. The smart ones figure out how to take a remarkable innovation and turn it into a living (or a bigger than big payout) but not the other way around. I think the reason is pretty obvious: when you try to make a profit from your innovation, you stop innovating too soon. You take the short payout because it’s too hard to stick around for the later one. ”