The crack in everything

[lazariuk]

waking seems more related to living than to everything too.

and I also get to ask you now if you think life is an infestation in a dead universe.

In a round about way, that life is an infestation in a dead universe, is what I have been told for as long as I can remember but something in me just won't buy that, and there have been moments, small ones but ones that took pretty firm hold when I just knew that wasn't true. It can't be true.
The thinking I do for myself leads me answering no, but I don't always think for myself and more often than not, it feels like life is an infestation in a dead universe. But having given this little opinion on life, it occurs to me that I don't want to leave the impression that I know what life is because I don't.

[lizzytysh]

[quote] that life is an infestation in a dead universe[/and biological way. I've never heard it expressed so, uhm, succinctly in such a micro-biological/biological way. Granted anything's/everything's possible, but I've never 'known' infestations to become so complex or brilliant, though... nor development to extend so far, thinking of Darwin's theories regarding from whence we come and Einstein theories regarding the beyond. If I'm going to go with what's possibile, though; I'll just take G~d, and life in a living universe.


~ Lizzy

[lazariuk]

that life is an infestation in a dead universe

I've never heard it expressed so, uhm, succinctly in such a micro-biological/biological way. ~ Lizzy

Take pretty well any 1st year university biology textbook, and though it might take the whole book to do it, that is pretty much what is being said. To make it a little more funny it is sometimes expressed as a sexually transmitted disease from which there is no cure.

[lizzytysh]

. . . from which there is no cure.

I've heard that injecting the GWB Virus has shown some possibilities.


~ Lizzy

[Manna]

Maybe life is the crack in everything.
I kind of like that today.

[daka]

Maybe life is the crack in everything.
I kind of like that today.

I like your "crack" too Manna.

To be more precise I would probably be tempted to say that Life is the crack in nothingness.

Anyways I have been sitting in the bleachers here getting a bit dizzy (not from the height, from the topics ..... life, death, biology, astronomy etc.)

All I wish to offer is a few verses that I wrote to go with a child's nursery rhyme:

ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT

C
Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
G7 C
Life is but a dream

row row row your boat
to the other shore
then you won't have to cross
this river anymore .......... CHORUS

when you reach the rapids
the river runs too quick
if you simply concentrate
that's the only trick ........CHORUS

row row row your boat
to the waterfall
if you try to grab a bit
it's not there at all .........CHORUS

look for the chairman
queen or king
you'll find the name but
you'll not find any thing ..... CHORUS

rock rock rock your boat
give yourself a shake
you can only sleep so long
it's time now to awake ...... CHORUS


(If anyone has some verses to add I would appreciate receiving them)


daka

[Manna]

Maybe I want to think that life is the crack in everything because I consider myself to be alive, and I consider there to be something special about being alive. But maybe death is the crack in everything.

Daka,
I like your verses.

Here are the wiki verses:

Row, row, row the boat
Gently down the stream
If you see a waterfall
Don't forget to scream

Row, row, row the boat
Gently down the river
If you see a polar bear
Don't forget to shiver

Row, row, row the boat
Gently to the shore
If you see a lion
Don't forget to roar

Row, row, row the boat
Gently in the bath
If you see a spider
Don't forget to laugh

Row, row, row the boat
Gently as can be
'Cause if you're not careful
You'll fall into the sea!

Rock, rock, rock the boat
Gently to and fro
If you do it hard enough
Into the water you go

Row, row, row the boat
Gently down the stream
Throw your teachers overboard
And listen to them scream!

Another version goes:

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream. or Underneath the stream."
Ha! Ha! Fool'd ya all!
I'm a submarine.


Mister Rogers version:

Propel, propel, propel your craft,
Softly down the liquid solution.
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,
Existence is but an illusion.

Don Music from Sesame Street eventually came up with these lyrics (see below):

Drive, drive, drive your car,
Gently down the street.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a treat.

Mr. Bean in Bean (film) variated the lyrics while drunk:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile,
Don't forget to scream.
Argh!

and here's a madlib wizard that will help you write more verses if you want.

http://www.rinkworks.com/crazylibs/c/c8.shtml

[daka]

Maybe I want to think that life is the crack in everything because I consider myself to be alive, and I consider there to be something special about being alive. But maybe death is the crack in everything.

I too think that there are a lot of things "special" about being alive, especially as a human with faculties intact and fortunate, supportive, safe environmental circumstances.

I too think that death (impermanence) is the crack in everything. Science now seems to believe that 'things' come into existence and go out of existence constantly, like a movie being projected on a screen... this is a subtle kind of impermanence.

For an example of gross impermanence 'death' is helpful (quite gross). Also I often think about the three-month old infant named 'Sean' ... where is he now?... or the adolescent problem child dropping LSD? ... or the novice monk of 1998? The crack in all these people was their impermanence. This is not bad news to me because even the flawed monk of Jan 7th 2008 will go.. leaving the possibility (potentiality) of a less flawed monk to manifest in future.....light getting in is a possibility! ergo > enlightenment, hopefully, one day.

daka

glad you liked my verses

[daka]

LC: I guess the same sicknesses everybody has - that you don't get what you want, and if you do get it, it isn't what you wanted. The objects of your desire continually escape you. There's some wisdom, some path that if you could only embrace it, you could extract yourself from distress and suffering. All these aspirations that all of us nourish. That there's another life that would be better, that another way would be better, another lover would be better, another métier would be better... this idea that there is something to grasp.

http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/sl2001.htm


I came across this interview today and wondered what are peoples' opinions as to it's relevance to this thread. If there are many cracks maybe this is a rather large one that Leonard points to?

daka

[lazariuk]

LC: I guess the same sicknesses everybody has - that you don't get what you want, and if you do get it, it isn't what you wanted. The objects of your desire continually escape you. There's some wisdom, some path that if you could only embrace it, you could extract yourself from distress and suffering. All these aspirations that all of us nourish. That there's another life that would be better, that another way would be better, another lover would be better, another métier would be better... this idea that there is something to grasp.

I came across this interview today and wondered what are peoples' opinions as to it's relevance to this thread. If there are many cracks maybe this is a rather large one that Leonard points to?
daka

Let me see if I think it is relevant to this thread. Do I have that sickness? Was I the former alter boy from Montreal who grew to thinking that things would be better some place else if i could only find the right path to suit a nature which wasn't satisfied that it was getting everything it wanted where and how it was.? Yep. I got that sickness.

If you are looking to see if he is right that everyone has it you can count on my vote Daka. How about you?

[daka]

How about you?

I answered but I am tired and I think I did not answer well. I took it down, erased it, and will try again tomorrow.

daka

[lazariuk]

How about you?

Yes, Jack, I believe I have that sickness.
daka

Daka I just keep staring at that word believe and wonder why people use that word.

Either you have it or you don't or you don't know.

I use to wonder that at the time we were in church saying things like "I believe this and I believe that" Why didn't we just say the things? Or we could have said "they want us to believe this or they want us to believe that" etc.

Personally I'm trying to get away from believing anything that I haven't experienced for myself.

I especially like Leonard's line "You kept me from believing until you let me know"

So if you are not sure that you have this sickness and just believe it, how can you be sure that it is something that you want to be cured of?

I'll tell you something else that impressed me about your hero. When he said that he had 404 illnesses I wondered how he knew that by the time he got to the end that it would be exactly 404 that he named. Then I noticed that there were exactly 777 paragraphs and I remembered that little exercise I do to remember things which involves the brain's ability to remember groups of seven.
Then I noticed that in the beginning he wrote " I have no concern for the welfare of others, and I have composed this solely to season my own mind." and then "if someone else with a disposition like my own examines this, it may be meaningful."
If I get too weird for you let me know, but I am pretty sure that I am nowhere near as weird as that other guy.

[lizzytysh]

Hi Jack ~

Can you scan the material you have and point me to the chapter with the joke. It'll make it so much quicker and easier, if you could be helpful in that way.


Hi Daka ~

Only you know for sure, according to what was in your mind, but I thought you answered Jack's question well.


~ Lizzy

[lazariuk]

Lets consider the everything that we are looking for the crack in.

The latest thing in physics
is that either we have been wrong
about everything
about general relativity
about quantum theory
about E equaling mass times the speed of light to the second power

or

That the Everything contains much more
than we previously thought
96 percent more
70 percent they call dark energy
26 percent they call dark matter
it is called dark
because of it
we know
absolutely nothing

in other words
we think that we know
a tiny bit about the universe
if the tiny bit we know
is true
then that means
we know a tiny bit
about the 4 percent of it

And of that 4 % we know so so very little. The 4% includes all of the stars etc and we know very little about them. We don't even know our own planet very well, we know very little about what is in our oceans and if you were to reduce the planet to the size of a 6 foot steel ball and breathe on it the depth of the moisture from your breath would be deeper than the deepest ocean. Consider how little we know.
And of this tiny bit we know we require instruments to even have our senses aware of over 99.99 % of it. Microscopes etc. and of our .0001 % of that 4% that we can sense is just the surface of it.
And of most of the stuff that many think we know, the stuff that we are experiencing every second of every day, things like gravity, what it is and what causes it we know absolutely nothing. There are a couple of ideas maybe but they have never even been elevated to the status of being theories.
Then consider that this is just the physical everything that we are talking about. We probably know even less of the metaphysical everything.

There is a crack in everything and this we can see together and be united.

[Manna]

Then I noticed that in the beginning he wrote " I have no concern for the welfare of others, and I have composed this solely to season my own mind." and then "if someone else with a disposition like my own examines this, it may be meaningful."

didn't Leonard say something akin to that (only more graciously, of course) about BoM?

I believe people use the word believe when they are pretty sure of something, but fall short of knowing it absolutely. I know that the chair I am sitting on is composed mostly of space, but I believe that it will continue to support me anyway. There are so many things I believe that it will be impossible for me to get away from them all. I believe I'll wake in the morning, and the world will be very similar to how it was when I went to sleep. I believe the child I brought home from the hospital is the one I birthed. I believe my husband has a special kind of love for me. I believe you, usually.