The value of contradictions... (games to play at work)

"Every rule has an exception."

This is the nearest thing to a universal rule. It applies to all rules, and avoids contradiction because it is an exception to itself. Note that it is not self-identical (it is not an Ouroboros), it is an exception to itself, it is different from itself.

If we accept this, the rest is easier.

I am having fun at work at the moment having worked out how to annul every act of power that the bosses try to impose.

It is probably not the right application of a tool that is spoken about throughout philosophy and religion! but it is educational and fun.

The bosses are forever introducing new Universal Rules at work. The secret to diffusing this is realising that every rule has two sides: the side where it applies and the side where it doesn't apply. And if they have enumerating the boundary conditions of every rule it becomes infinitely complex and you may as well not use the rule at all and just use common sense (which is a term being used more often at work ;-)

Humans chose rules which suit the side that they are on, since they naturally want the rules to please themselves. The desire to be on our own side makes us blind to the other side. Obviously people on the other side of Universal rules suffer, often unknown to the rule makers (see the endless contradictions and suffering caused by internal law and economic/political policy - especially the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan (see the wiki histories) which go around and around century after century)

The key of course is to take the rule and obey it but how we like which means expand the rules we don't like to include the other side, which then break them.

Most recent example the meeting at work on Monday. The boss has decided arbitrarily that we are not allowed mobile phones in the labs (despite having no problems for 8 years). The reason he cited when asked was that they might disrupt our work.

Now rather than contest this side of the argument, I expanded that rule about disruption (which I like) and used it to get out of answering any phones at all :-) So now he has to answer all the phones in the company and that sparked a conflict between him and the other boss. Simple transference of Rule and Contradiction back over the fence to where it came from.

The latest rule that will be used to equal effect is one about wearing "lab coats" in the "lab" (a next to pointless rule) but one that can't always apply .... or can it ;-)

The only way out of these situation is to reveal the inequalities and biases that are inherent in the system in the first place (by basically making exceptions for certain people and situations). While the papers love revealing this - finding any hypocracy they can - I'm not actually against hypocracy. Truth is truth, even if people don't follow it themselves. However there seems to be a reluctance in even the worst egoist in admitting that they better than other people.

I think this must follow the same logic. A rule "I am better than other people" automatically creates a fence and puts other people over it. But, in doing this the egoist is having to accept a rule and a side of the fense themselves! It might be nice side of the fence, but it is not an Ouroboros. They are trapped upon their own side and this defeats the whole point of "being better than other people".

The human mind wants freedom and it can approximate this through ignorance (in which case use expansion of rules beyond their intended locus to reveal the ignorance) or through wisdom which guides itself.

The previous post of a link, not read yet, does really seem to be a hope in resolving these observations about life.

A Most fascinating webpage - hopefully my questions answered :-)

Very much reading here... maybe the Ouroboros will not have to eat itself after all.

http://holophany.com/

Why I should not love...

these poems make it clear the terrible sacrifice of love... we are like the little mermaid brought our desire to walk amongst the mortals that we love but where every step is upon broken glass... rejoice and also dread that day when love next makes claim upon us.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Divine Discontent:
The Moods of Rumi

In the orchard and rose garden

I long to see your face.

In the taste of Sweetness

I long to kiss your lips.

In the shadows of passion

I long for your love.

Oh! Supreme Lover!

Let me leave aside my worries.

The flowers are blooming
with the exultation of your Spirit.

By Allah!

I long to escape the prison of my ego

and lose myself
in the mountains and the desert.

These sad and lonely people tire me.

I long to revel in the drunken frenzy of your love
and feel the strength of Rustam in my hands.

I’m sick of mortal kings.

I long to see your light.

With lamps in hand
the sheiks and mullahs roam
the dark alleys of these towns
not finding what they seek.

You are the Essence of the Essence,

The intoxication of Love.

I long to sing your praises
but stand mute
with the agony of wishing in my heart.

(copied from The Road not Taken)

I do not love you except because I love you
Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I
love
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel ray
stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

(copied from Aida0)

Myth of Development, Banana republics n starvation

Realise this isn't in the blog yet, and becoming more relevant all the time...

Firstly the wholly inadequate article from Wikipedia: Banana_republic

Why is it that third world economies that are based on agriculture are the first to feel the pinch of rising food demand?

What have international conditions got to do with their own food production?

I imagine it is because of the Banana Republic problem. "developing" countries are not really developing, they are being taken over by an economy that suits export and the interests of investors. That way "developed" countries can get richer and buy things cheaper at the same time.

Thus labour intensive traditional farming is replaced by mechanised monoculture. That is to say the once small land owners who grew the local varieties of foods for local consumption, are pushed off the land by industrialists who create crops for export. Massive unemployent is created and the mass of people seeking a way to feed themselves fuels the growth in industry, and the development of cities. The country is gradually stolen from the people.

It happened here in the UK during the 16 to 19th centuries. Most people have forgotten about it. We think here that the dependent, passive economic existence we have, the fixed 9-5 job, the worries about money are normal because we have forgotten the days when we could simply feed ourselves from our own land however we wished. There are still "commons" here where we can do this without hassle from the economy or the government.

Now the problem with crops for export is multi-fold. Firstly it is less efficient! True it provides more food per hectare and employs a fraction of the workers and makes huge profits for the farm owners. But, mechanical agriculture can only farm flat land, and economics means that only the best land is worth farming. Farmers are put out of business, tradional low productivity methods are lost and local varieties are lost. The total food productivity actually falls!

Secondly the crops produced - being of only a few international desired types (maize and wheat especially) - are quite possibly badly suited to the climate, and if there is a problem (like disease, or cyclone) then a huge percentage of the productivity is lost (as is happening in Africa as I write). The country becomes extremely vulnerability to famine.

Thirdly the country's food is now bought in from the international community. This is fine for rich countries with international muscle like the G7, but makes the country very vulnerable to starvation and dependency on G7 otherwise. Plus in times of food scarcity like now it is the food producers ironically who are the last to get food on their tables, if at all!

So the problem of third world starvation, and dependency upon Western AID is more than anything created by the system of development and AID in the first place. I work with a number of Nepalese and even they who come from a "developing" country seem blinded by the mirage of riches being promised them. They keep walking into the desert of poverty pulling the cart of Western slave drivers behind them.

Like it seems everything in this topsy turvy world things are really the opposite of what they seem. The ones who look like they are helping are really causing the problems. The ones who are claiming they have been attacked are really the ones doing the attacking. The ones who are in control are really the vulnerable who survive only on lies and tricks. Hopefully the World will learn and we will simply wake up from this self imposed bad dream of "government" and "authority". It also follows that the ones who look like they know what they are talking about (for example the government or me) probably don't - so don't believe what you read, think it through!

Freedom is our own choice. Slavery is our own choice also.

Money is no more than a mark on a page...

...so never measure true worth in currency! I always preferred Monopoly ( © Parker Bros. board games) to Capitalism anyway ;-)

"The manufacturing process to make money consists of making an entry in a book. That is all. . . . Each and every time a Bank makes a loan . . . new Bank credit is created -- brand new money.

Dollar Deception

A thought: is the Credit River Decision a hoax? "Credit River" get it? Tho its an essential ruling if not!

New Winter Soldier gathering in Washington (USA)

Given that killing is always wrong, it is amazing the complex route that people must take to realise the obvious about Iraq. That people signed up for war, signed up to kill people, and then find that really its not very nice and is maybe wrong is the most remarkable feature of human beings. Based on imagination only we will risk our lives and worse the lives of others. Something everyone should remember the words of writer Dinah Craik: "believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see". I find that is about the correct balance... (of course you heard that from her so you shouldn't believe it until you've seen it for yourself!!)

New Winter Soldier gathering in Washington (USA):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3444835.ece

Daffodil - 23rd April 2006

A short video that i took and by chance set to this Benedictus by Carl Jenkins (The Armed Man). It was taken on St Georges Day 2006 (23rd April).

"Nowhere in all of the universe can one find this daffodil; a moment of beauty that has passed forever. And, I came to discover months after, that at this moment "my muse" had only days left under this same sky. And, what has shocked me is that I could feel this but could make no sense of it.

Eleven days after it was filmed her radiance faded and it became that nowhere in all the universe could she be found. A moment of beauty, lost forever, in April 2006.

On You-Tube