Maybe the tree of knowledge of good and evil isn't about the sudden awakening of man, but the birth of discrimination as a meme, from which man started going around labeling whatever doesn't match their opinion as evil?

Why world peace is impossible is very simple : we have all been brainwashed beyond being able to let our children really believe that the "enemies", the "criminals", the "terrorists", the "deviants", the poor, the foreigner, the "opposition", and the "uncultured" are exactly like us and are just as deserving of what life has to offer as ourselves.

***

Religions are man made. Cultures are man made. Politics are man made. Crimes are also man made. There is no such thing as crime in nature. By creating the idea of crime, we create a "society" and an "underground society" that cannot agree. Not that I support antisocial forces, but both society and underground society are part of a bigger picture.

For me the issue is beyond religion, nationalism, race, language, culture, history, and goes down to what we think collective living and societies are, spanning all forms of identity.

*** 

Selfishness is a key feature of our biology. So is empathy. But these two are not contradictory, but bound together by self-(less)-ness.

If you spread your sense of identity, your "self-ness" beyond your skin, beyond your kin, selfishness becomes essential for the survival of the Whole! In this light, heroes are simply superhuman-ly selfish people!

The beautiful thing about this model is that, when something goes "wrong", there is no need for punishment, no need to define Crime, because the Whole is in pain together. 

Live

When everything around you has become measurable, scientific, and predictable, you know that you have stopped growing and started dying. Growth is always full of chaotic power, brimming with uncertain possibilities, and a refusal to be bound and tamed.

Reading

Why do you read, if not to live lives you cannot live, that your understanding of the mind be widened, that your capacity for compassion be deepened?

Pain

Pain is the struggle against death. It is the same pain of growing up. It is the same pain of growing old. It is the same pain you fear when you have substituted that pain with shrewdness and wealth, when you forget that the struggle against death is never over. No, it is not over. It is only over when you have learnt to breathe that struggle like air. It is only over when death overtakes you and leave you nothing to struggle against.

Nobody else knows how to be you 24/7
You're the only one who's done it and survived.
Take advice but don't forget
It's your heaven your hell your world your life!

Focusing on individual differences is about not resorting to conformism, but it's not opposed to social cohesion. On the contrary, understanding the ugly details of how we are different makes us more integrated. A bundle of sticks doesn't break as easily as one single stick, exactly because each stick is different. 

10 things to do to stay young

1. Make young friends to stay in touch with what's happening.
2. Take care of your looks. Look at least relevant and approachable so you can make young friends.
3. Exercise. Young at heart is no good if your body isn't there to keep your heart pumping.
4. Try something new every day.
5. Start something you've never imagined doing before every year.
6. Listen to music you've never heard before. All the time.
7. Take risks. The older you are, the less you have to lose.
8. Discover yourself. If you think you know yourself well enough, you probably don't.
9. Seek new environments. New homes, new jobs, new lives - for some, new religions, new cultures, new countries and new families.
10. Stop talking about the past and dare to talk about the future. You're never too young too love, never too old to dream.

On slenderman

There's something profoundly human about the desire to believe - religion, philosophy, tradition, folklore, branding - are just some labels we use to artificially categorize things that feed on this mechanism because - giving things names helps us believe they exist.

Wednesday Survival Guide

Stress is the result of allowing yourself to be tricked into believing you are responsible for things you have no ability, authority, or social liability to achieve. Don't try too hard; you have a right to be here. Focus on letting go of what you need not control, and enjoy whatever you have in your court. Strive to be happy. When in doubt, eat, sleep, and exercise.

Silence

The wind never tries to blow
It blows because it is the wind.
When you sit in an open field
You hear silence
In the wind that doesn't try.

A duck by the stream
And all the fish in it
All live in the silence of the park
Because silence is the sound
Of not trying.

In Remembering what peace there may be in silence
You don't recall what soundlessness sounds like;
That would make you try too hard
To sit still.
Because silence is not soundlessness; silence is being conscious that doing is a kind of being;
Not a kind of trying.

It's the same 24 hours.

It's the same 24 hours.
Busy is what you do with it.
Happy is how you do it.
Fulfillment is why you do it.
Achievement is when you do it.

The secret of an awesome daily todo list: plan one little event a day that makes you happy!

TNBT : world history reimagined

Imagine : baggage free history curriculum

What if archeologist and educationists of diverse backgrounds got together and formed a cloud to design a cross-national history curriculum for children between 8 and 18?

What if a generation grew up learning about the world not from one biased perspective, but from the perspective of artifacts and documents, intertwined with an education in human behavioral psychology?

What if a generation grew up seeing world history as a universal heritage instead of walls that divide cultures?

TNBT

The next-next-next big thing : Imagine Democracy Kickstarter

What if it became cheaper to provide mobile internet access than sinking billions into election campaigns, minister pays, and top-down decisions that don't work?

What if you voted not for people, but for causes?

What if funds available were divided equally among all voters, and your vote determines how much funds the cause actually gets?

What if policies were drafted by a Parliament which can present proposals and analysis, but the Parliament has no power to decide - the power to decide were given back to the people?

What if the government were not subjected to the power structure they build up, but are constantly subject to the vote market, proposal after proposal?

What if the ballot ticket had not only YES and NO, but also RE-PROPOSE to demand the proposal to be redrafted?

What if all the time you spent on Facebook and Twitter, actually counted in Policy?

Before you were born

Do things sometimes feel like they're not going right?
Let me tell you a secret:
Everything is working out exactly according to plan.

Before you were born
You had envisioned this day - 
In fact, you planned every single event
So meticulously laying out every hour
In your Masterplan; and now
Everything is coming to life
Exactly how, exactly when, exactly where you had meant it to.

So the next time you're wondering
What's wrong? Why are things so?
Try instead to recall:
What was that single perspective you had taken
That made everything look right
Before you were born?

Pascal's Wager

The dilemma of believing in the Christian God on the basis of Pascal's Wager results in the strange situation where the one thing you believe in more than God him/herself, is the value of your personal gain. If you keep that position in your faith, you will break the 1st commandment. If you don't keep that position, you invalidate the reason you chose to believe in God, releasing you from the faith. Applying Pascal's Wager to another religion would therefore be much simpler.

Love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not compare, it does not rank, it does not favor top performers. It does not pathologize, it is not profit-oriented, it does not make short-sighted responses, it cannot be quantified for arithmetics. Love cannot be abused to hurt, but rejoices when the hurting are set free. It always takes the blow, always believes in the face of betrayal, always hopes when things go wrong, always runs the full marathon to the finishing line.

Without the Grid

Without the Grid

How do you invite someone home for dinner,
If the land line
Is digital somewhere?

How do you get an invitation card delivered,
If logistics is real time
And digital?

How do you buy your ingredients,
If your retailer pays rent
Digitally?

How do you locate a local farm
If you cannot search that
Online?

How do you drive over
If traffic lights
Are controlled digitally?

You'd walk over to your friends house
Which is probably within walking distance
Because without the Grid
You'd probably not get to know
Someone living that far away anyway.

TNBT

The next-next-next big thing :  Just-In-Time Manufacturing





Imagine: You order a new handphone, selecting the customizations you want - features, design, customized printing and name engraving. You click "submit", and your new phone arrives the same evening.

Imagine: You enter your credit card number and click "submit" - and in that moment, an autonomous car starts driving your way, loaded with the 3D printers, weaving and painting robots and everything to manufacture your order. The car's route is optimally planned, considering road conditions and manufacturing time. When the car hits your doorstep, your product has just been sealed into the box.