Light Up the World
Live. Love. Laugh. LAX.
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Charlie Chaplin/Hans Zimmer
The Great Dictator/Inception
I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor - that’s not my business - I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish…
Soldiers - don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.”
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Henry Miller on Originality
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up., brainpickings.org“And your way, is it really your way?”
In response to yesterday’s brilliant letter from Mark Twain to Helen Keller, addressing the myth of originality, reader Skip Zilla flags this beautiful passage by Henry Miller, from the…
Henry Miller on the myth of originality
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How to Lose 23 Lbs in 28 Days (Hint: it requires radical system-hacking)
Maneesh Sethi on May 12, 2012, 7:00 AM, bigthink.com28 days later, on October 22, I checked the scales. 162 lbs.
I didn’t count calories. I didn’t have to use willpower, go to the gym, take magic weightloss drugs.
Nope. My method was much simpler: I moved into the desert and tried to…
Create a situation that makes failure impossible.
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”He later sets. I try to go home, and I take a path I do not know, a small path along the factories and the city by cutting through the forest. I am just beginning to glimpse nature, when suddenly, night falls. I plunged into darkness and silence.
Yet I am not afraid. I fall asleep a few minutes at most, and when I wake up, the sun is there, and the forest shines a bright light. I recognize that forest. This is not an ordinary forest. It is a forest of memories. My memories. This river, white noise, my adolescence. These great trees, the men I loved. The bird that flies. away, my father disappeared. My memories are not memories, they are there, live near me!, They dance and embrace me, sing and smile at me. I look at my hands, I stroked my face, I’m 20 years old and I love like I never loved.”
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]This track has had 0 playsIrish Drinking Songs by The Boondock Saints -
MEEK: patient, calm, long-suffering; humble
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. It’s a distortion, but a pervasive one. Such is the power of song and poetry. It’s dangerous, however, because it is simply not true.
There were times when He chose to be meek. But He was never mild. He was born into conflict and remained in it His whole life. He jousted with the devil in the desert; He frequently exchanged words with the religious groups of the day. He risked life and reputation by spending time with housefuls of tax collectors and in the company of known prostitutes. He was not condemned to die on the cross because He was mild. He was sent there because He was wild.Wild enough to turn over the tables of those who were fleecing the faithful as they came to the temple to worship. Wild enough to tame a storm. Wild enough to embrace the hated neighbors (Samaritans). Wild enough to touch the unclean leper.
Jesus was meek and wild. If we only ever speak of the tender Jesus, we will slip into sentimentality. If we only ever speak of the Jesus who challenged human hearts, we will end up sounding shrill. If we speak of both, we can bring words that will sustain and nourish a spiritually hungry, weary and brokenhearted generation. -
Borrowing the Past
Awake, oh sleeper.
You kids of yesterday. You forefathers of tomorrow. This is our world.
We were never perfect. You’re young, and that gives you energy. Stay rooted to the ground. Give thanks for what you’ve received. Our greatest gift is yet to be seen. You will triumph, but you may fail. And in those moments, you will know our mistakes. You will recognize our intent and you will begin to know our kind. You will tell our stories, and in return we will tell yours.
Awake, oh sleeper.
Hear the tone of a reminder long forgetten. Our song is of goodness. Our song is of humanity. It isn’t long, and it isn’t always sweet. But it’s for you.
Awake, oh sleeper.
I see you and your face. Your music rings through my ears, singing hymns of break of day. You lullabyed my sleep.
Awake, oh sleeper.
YOU SHINE BRIGHT BEFORE THE DAY. And we know that we must go.
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We are too quick to live this life and forget that there is another world to come…this is not the end.
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