We have a tendency towards enjoying inflicting pain and suffering.
We have a selfish greed for wealth and power.
We enjoy violence.
They are prevalent in all cultures throughout history.
How do we overcome these immense flaws?
Poetry – There Are No Answers
There Are No Answers
There are no answers
To the heavens,
To life,
To thought.
There are no answers.
There are no answers
To death.
There are no reasons
To be found
For being,
Seeing
Or wondering.
There are no answers.
But there are mighty questions
To be wondered at.
Opher 1.8.2018
To sit among the wonders of infinity and wonder – that is remarkable. I find myself surrounded by questions with no answers in sight.
But it is good to wonder.
Poetry – Dreams are Real
Dreams are Real
Maybe dreams are real
And live forever
As expanding bubbles
Of imagination –
Expanding at the
Speed of thought –
Exploding through space
And time
Like ripples of surreal fantasy –
Passing through minds
Like beams of magnetic stimulation –
Caressing the sleeping senses
Of alien dreamers
And inducing smiles?
Opher 22.8.2016
Dreams are Real
I often play with this idea that consciousness is someone else’s dream. The reality we appear to live is an illusion. The more science discovers about quantum physics, subatomic particles, black holes, quasars and the big bang the stranger it all becomes.
All we know is that life is a lot weirder than we ever imagined.
I like the idea that dreams have a life of their own and travel between our minds in sleep – out to the stars and into the minds of other life-forms on planets light-years away.
Better to communicate and induce smiles than to remain apart and induce fear.
I’m a hopeless romantic.
Words of Wisdom
Groucho Marx Quotes
Some people have a way with words. Groucho was one of the best. Bumba reminded me yesterday!
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
“I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
“There is one way to find out if a man is honest; ask him! If he says yes you know he’s crooked.”
“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
“Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.”
“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”
Poetry – Torrential Rain
Torrential Rain
Torrential rain fell down like truth
On the heads of the people walking home
Staccato rhythms
On wellington’d minds
This is another of those little haiku type poems I wrote back in the 90s. It seemed very fitting at this time of election fever!
My spellcheck says that there is no such word as welllington’d. There is now.
We are all surrounded with information and truth yet ignore it. We prefer to live in our little insular bubble. As long as we are comfortable and getting our needs met we can forget about the nasty things going on all around us. Besides there is nothing we can do about it.
Reality check – the reason ISIS is rampaging and the chimps are being slaughtered is precisely because people do not care.
We can make a difference!
Poetry – Between Something & Nothing
Between Something & Nothing
Between something and nothing
The ebb and the flow
The words that have meaning
And the ones we let go.
Between truth and fiction
And the dreams that we make
The life that we live
Asleep or awake
Between now and never
What is and is not
The ones that are guilty
And the ones that get shot
Between all we hold dear
And the things we must fear
Lie the questions we ask
As we peek through this mask
At a dream that’s not clear
We appear
To be here.
OPHER 26.11.96
On our first day we open our eyes into a brand new universe. It blinks into existence.
We accept the majesty of it as real and base our lives on the concrete character of its unchanging nature.
We only see a fraction of its reality. We glimpse the rest at best. Our instruments are our spectacles.
So what is this consciousness we hold so dear? A product of biochemistry? An evolutionary phenomenon?
Our awareness is an incredible and amazing delight.
Without it where would we be?
Poetry – Across the bounds of reason
Across the bounds of reason
From here in my head to your eyes
Across the bounds of reason
Is a leap of imagination.
Between us lies the universe
A tangled web of conjecture
With reasoned insinuation.
From here to there is too far
To be sure of anything
Least of all substantiation.
And from here to here is too near
To form an opinion
When all life is just infatuation.
What I see may be as it seems
Or just one of my dreams
Without seams to separate me from the gleam
That streams
From your eyes
Across the enormity of size
Despite it all we may yet be real
With time stood still
In a smile
Opher 8.12.96
We all live in universes within our own heads. Nobody knows what goes on inside that world; nobody can be sure that the colours are true or the symbols we use convey the same meaning.
I have my philosophy and who can ever understand?
We try to communicate between the polyverses of our existence. Reason tells us that we must fall short.
Our consciousnesses are islands; our words are semaphore messages across a void.
Poems are written in Morse Code with rhythm and rhyme to make the journey sweeter.
Even our own perception of reality is partial and subjective. We do not even see the universe we inhabit. I am in love with the mystical force of celestial magnificence. I cannot convey it.
Yet communication is all we have, and we love and reach out with sight and touch to taste each other’s worlds.
Poetry – A Message
A Message
I have just received a message
From a star
Two million light years away.
It said
Shine.
I took it personally.
I thought
It was a sign.
Opher – 8.11.2020
It is no good hiding ourselves away. We only get so many chances. One life is all we have.
The worst that can happen is we fail.
I’m getting good at that.
I have plenty of practice.
Poetry – Everything is the first.
Everything is the first.
I was the first
To do everything
I have ever done.
It was always different
Each time.
Within the moment
Is everything.
We only
Have to experience
It perfectly,
Just once.
Opher – 8.11.2020
I was having one of my transcendental moments of realisation. I often get them when contemplating nature, watching a sunset or staring into a burning fire.
It is a kind of realisation of the nature of reality.
We are in harmony with a dynamic system. In the moment you capture it there is perfect peace.
Everything is the first.
I was the first
To do everything
I have ever done.
It was always different
Each time.
Within the moment
Is everything.
We only
Have to experience
It perfectly,
Just once.
Opher – 8.11.2020
I was having one of my transcendental moments of realisation. I often get them when contemplating nature, watching a sunset or staring into a burning fire.
It is a kind of realisation of the nature of reality.
We are in harmony with a dynamic system. In the moment you capture it there is perfect peace.
Opher's World 