People act as if they will be judged by one work within a life. But we're judged by our body of works... or should be.

Running can be a form of procrastination. It can also be a form of survival.

Success is accidental. Be prepared.

The only thing that truly protects freedom is the will to have it - and that will can only be negotiated from a position of weakness.

Any place that serves roast beef sandwiches without horseradish does not make sandwiches.

We all live in our own projected sanitariums, some more complicated than others, growing as we age. When the projections become complex, we sometimes simplify so that we can move forward. It's what we miss when we simplify that marks our innocence.

A benign enemy is better than a dangerous friend. But making that choice between the two can make a dangerous enemy out of dangerous friend.

If we follow our history of society, we can see patterns in our advances. If we consider mankind, as a whole, to be a creature instead of a species, we might consider that the need for freedom, as a trait, permits adaptability and generalization - providing a broader chance for the creature to survive. The more freedom we have, the more potential we have to react in a way that permits our survival. More freedoms, more likely to survive.

Bureaucracy protects decision-makers from the results of their decisions. Imagine a non-lethal electrical shock administered to a decision-maker for every poor choice made. I can dream, can't I?

When something goes wrong, some people stick in that moment to find a solution to the problem that they can live with. This can take a very long time.

If I wanted to control the world, the first thing I would do would be to control all the information and decide who gets to see what. Sort of like the present copyright and patent systems do. { Read more }

In responding to a comment, I brought up Taran's Constant - something I haven't really defined in writing until now. The general theory behind it is that there is an overwhelming amount of people who, no matter how good their intentions, want something for nothing. Robert Heinlen wrote in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress: TANSTAAFL. Expanded, it becomes There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

(If you want to know about the picture to the left, read Ownership.)

In a wonderful, happy-clappy¹ world things would all be free. If you wanted something, someone would give it to you or would not complain if you took it. Whatever you needed, whatever you wanted, it would be yours for the asking. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in: Things have a limited supply, and as such there are people who fill the niche attempting to explain how things with a limited supply are dealt with by the descendants of those who used shellfish and stones as barter. These people are called 'economists', and are often made popular by taking very interesting and sometimes exotic positions on just about everything. Looking back at my life and knowing what I know now, I probably should have become an economist. { Read more }

When I took the picture at left, I was struck by the look of the macaw as it looked beyond the cage surrounding it. I wanted to humanize it, make the picture some metaphor of imprisonment - my father detested birds in cages, as do I, and yet there is always the problem these days of something being set free only to be caught and imprisoned by another - be it an animal or a copyright or patent. We live in an era where ownership seems to mean capture, control, imprisonment - a sort of slavery in it's own right. As many people know, I'm a Free Software/Open Source advocate though I no longer belong to either camp - but the reason why I am is for much the same reason that the photograph struck me. { Read more }

I just wrote of freedom. Now comes unfreedom.

The blue-grey tanager in the picture is not in a cage, it is next to a fence - it can easily flit above the fence, even through the wires if it so decides. It is free. But the owner of the fence is not.

The owner of the fence feeds the birds to vicariously enjoy their freedom. The owner of the fence lives within the fence of his own choosing - an unfreedom he chose through a freedom of choice.

How he likes the birds; he marvels at how fast I pull out my camera to shoot pictures. We discuss the other birds seen. We both know birds well; he from years of inviting them into his cage and I from trying to escape my own cage. My own unfreedom.

He is accustomed to his unfreedom. I am always breaking free. And like the bird, he enjoys my company, invites me in and listens to my stories of the other parts of the world - the parts outside of his cage.

To him, I am the bird. To the bird, I am him. To me, I am both and not.

Bardo Thodol.
Chonyid Bardo.

There is no owner of the fence. There is one who chooses to claim ownership of the fence, and the fence owns him.

And still, knowing that, I am both and not.