If Life is Hard, Shouldn't We All Wear Helmets?

The answer would be yes, if I really believed it.  Sure, life can be hard, but just like a good laugh, it's over before you know it.  So, the real question is, to quote an old cliche, "Is your glass half empty, or half full?"  The answer to that question will determine how much you've bought into the theology of "Live Is Hard".

On a lighter note, to show where a man's brain really resides, organized Hockey required the wearing of a Protective Cup as early as 1879.  For those who never had the privilege of wearing said device...we in the adolescent sports world referred to them as "Ball Bras"!

It took 100 years for Hockey to require the use of a helmet to protect the head, when the league required all new players to wear a helmet starting in 1979.  At least men know their priorities!

So, if you need to wear a helmet, a protective device (real or imaginary) to get through life, at least make it a fun one, like a Beer Helmet...

...or put on a smile and shine a light on a brilliant idea!

Just remember!

Sir Hook the Cup Wearing, Head Exposed Lover of Life of Warrick

If Not Now...Zen

Good to see Zen and Haiku's make a reappearance on the KMSA blog, so lets not waste space on what I think.... just read on.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

The obstacle is the path.

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you take up there.

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden.

In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.

Begin to see what is in front of you, rather than what you learned is there.

Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.

Zen is mind-less activity, that is, Mind-ful activity, and it may often be advisable to emphasize the mind, and say, Take care of the thoughts and the actions will take care of themselves.

Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules--this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.

Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.

Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song.

For Zen, man is the goal; man is the end unto himself. God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.

Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.

When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear.

Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special.

The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.

The future of humanity will move closer and closer toward the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly.

Sir Dayvd of Zenobia

The School of Life

The other night, when I was checking out bands in the Camden district of London, I happened apon a shop frontage that piqued my interest, and made me take three steps back.

It was late, and the shop was shut, but above me was a swing sign with mustard color letters announcing The School of Life, and in the windows it had various philosophical posters, and claims for Ideas to Live By, saying;

Have you had one of those mornings lately in which you got up and wondered why you were doing a job that exhausted you or that you didn't really enjoy? Or found yourself spending the day running against the clock, too stressed to eat properly but not actually creatively challenged? Do you waste time brooding over unresolved arguments or feeling guilty for not being kinder to those in need? Do you notice your mind flitting unsatisfactorily from what the government should be doing about the world’s financial situation to what you are going to do with your weekend?

The School of Life is a place to step back and think intelligently about these and other common concerns. You will not be cornered by any dogma, but directed towards a variety of ideas - from philosophy to literature, psychology to the visual arts – that tickle, exercise and expand your mind. You'll meet other curious, sociable and open-minded people in an atmosphere of exploration and enjoyment.

This intrigued me, and though I had a long coach trip back to Oxford, it gave me time to think what this could be about.

I've always prided myself on getting this far in life, by a combination of Luck and daily attendance at the University of Hard Knocks.

At High School, certainly in my day, they didn't teach me anything about Life as Life, the nearest we got was a curious thing called Liberal Studies once a week, which was basically everybody talking at once, and me deluding myself I was the funniest guy in the world.

All the teacher ever taught us was, how to bet on horses, and the wise words that if a naked woman were to walk passed our window every day at 11 o'clock, by the end of two weeks we wouldn't bother looking. He also said that out of a class of thirty, that five of us would be dead by the time we were 25. He wasn't wrong, about all of it.

The rest I learned as I went along, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, till now the only thing I don't particularly know is where I'm going to drop dead myself, but as Woody Allen once said " if I knew that , I wouldn't go there."

So when I got through the homestead door, I checked out The School of Life, online, and quite an interesting read it made too;

It was started in August 2008 by Alain de Botton (born 20 December 1969) a Swiss writer, television presenter and entrepreneur. His books and television programmes discuss various subjects in a philosophical style with an emphasis on their relevance to everyday life

The School has a passionate belief in making learning relevant – and so runs courses in the important questions of everyday life. Whereas most colleges and universities chop up learning into abstract categories (‘agrarian history’ ‘the 18th century English novel’), The School of Life titles its courses according to things we all tend to care about: careers, relationships, politics, travels, families.

De Botton said in an interview "The idea is to challenge traditional universities and reorganise knowledge, directing it towards life, and away from knowledge for its own sake. In a modest way, it’s an institution that is trying to give people what universities should I think always give them: a sense of direction and wisdom for their lives with the help of culture.

So far so good, and the website www.theschooloflife.com certainly bears looking into. I'm a bit bemused by the words Sermon, and Psychotherapy, that keep cropping up, as these are two words that if uttered in any crowded English room will clear it quicker than if you said "I've got a nailbomb in my pocket."

Still it all claims to be non doctrinal, and while I can't say I'll be running along to join, as the thought that there is no substitute for experience keeps coming into my head..... I'll be reading some more of the typical "sermons" on Punctuality, on Frugality, Pessimism, Humor, Seduction and Curiosity,( all of which would make great chapter headings in a KMSA book,) and looking at their guides to the motherlodes of philosophical thinking.




Sir Dayvd (who should really start his own school of philosophy) of Oxfordshire