This was sent to me as a New Year's gift. "A seed is a very small thing." I have no idea who wrote it but it rings true.
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A seed is a very small thing.
You plant it, and in that secret place under the earth, if feeds from the soil, it breaks, and then a shoot comes up from the ground.
This small shoot seeks the light as it grows, and in time, it turns into a large tree. If you had not been told, you would not believe this tree came from such a small thing that once was hidden in the depths.
We cannot see what happens under the soil, because it is hidden from our eyes. Only the seed is present when the change happens. But eventually we see a tree, which cannot be ignored.
We do not consider the strength that resides within the seed because it is such a small thing. But we cannot ignore the tree.
This is an illustration of a certain belief that we fall into very easily, because it makes sense when we first think about it. It is the idea that our private lives should not matter to anyone but ourselves.
We look at our private lives as hidden from view, and we think they add no meaning whatsoever to the lives we live in public.
We say things like "whatever a man does in his private life is nobody's business."
Even more so, whatever a man thinks in his own head, in the deepest recesses of his mind, has little or no influence on the way that he behaves in public.
The truth is that those things which we do in private, even our thought life, matter more than anything else we do in life.
Because our private thoughts are like seeds.
They are planted in our heads. During that time, no one but we are able to see what happens in that secret place of our minds. But whether it is a good or a bad seed, it will seek nourishment and grow. Eventually a shoot will show up and become a plant. And this plant, if it continues to be watered and tended, will grow into a tree that cannot be ignored.
Still, we think that what we do in secret is not important because no one else is affected.
This is a great lie.
Consider this for a moment.
When you are in public, you try to abide by the regular standards of conduct generally prescribed by society. But when you are alone, you tend to loosen those standards because nobody is watching.
In fact, we see examples all the time of people who seem on the outside appear to lead exemplary lives, while their private lives are in shambles.
But their private lives eventually become everybody's business, because the person who you really are inside is that person who you are in your alone, secret moments.
These are the moments when you are free to be yourself. It is who you really are because you are not afraid of being judged when you are alone.
If during those alone times you cultivate seeds of disorder, those seeds will eventually sprout, and they will overflow into your public life.
It is in our most secret moments that we cultivate the real person whom we eventually become in public.
Those secret thoughts and behaviors are the seeds, which eventually grow roots and are the basis of how we eventually operate in the world outside
-- and how we operate in the world outside will inevitably affect those around us.
So we get back to this point: that which you have cultivated in secret does affect others, even though at the moment you may not think it does.
It may not seem like it does while you are feeding those character traits in private, but it does eventually when you step outside into the light and operate in accordance with habits you have cultivated in private -- in other words, when the shoot eventually breaks through the ground, because those secret habits that have become entrenched eventually give way to public character.
Thankfully, the same principle applies for cultivating seeds of good, of right thinking, of caring.
Thus, the solution is not to eliminate privacy, but rather to choose to habitually fill our minds with seeds that are noble, pure, loving, and admirable, and that which grows will be good for those whom we'll inevitably influence.
For in the end, we really have no choice but to influence others. Our life influences others simply by default. So the question is not whether or not we will influence others, but rather whether that influence will be positive or negative.
So consider the seed.
How small it is. You plant it. And in that secret place of darkness, it takes root and feeds, and eventually a shoot comes up from the ground and seeks the light as it grows and becomes a large tree, which you would not believe sprung from such a small thing that was once hidden from sight.
May we resolve in this New Year to begin cultivating such seeds.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Watch your thoughts. They become words.
Watch your words. They become deeds.
Watch your deeds. They become habits.
Watch your habits. They become character.
Character is everything.
American Film Makers
Why do American film makers insist on producing movies in which ninety-nine percent of them contain violence, sex and horror?
At the moment in South Africa the schools are going over the Children's Protection Act with the children and parents.
One of the criminal acts is:
‘It is unlawful to expose pornographic material to children’
It is bad enough that these laws need to be discussed with children; it is bad enough that these laws have to be made laws whereas in life it should be a known fact one just does not do these criminal acts.
The absolute worst part of it is adults do not set an example in these laws.
A child sitting down to watch a movie on television or at the cinema is automatically exposed to either violence, sex or horror, mostly all three rolled into one, the exception is rare.
What kind of double standard is this in society?
In putting up an age restriction sign in front of the movie; the film makers seems to think this absolves them from their criminal act. And the favourite reply is ‘you do not have to watch it’.
No the movie does not have to be watched however this is not the point. The point is why should we have to live in a society with people who do watch this trash and why should we have to live in a world with film makers who contravene the criminal act?
This is a good example of the economic life interfering with the culture life. At the end of the day the film makers could not care what trash they make so long as they make money at the ‘box office’. True?
Is this the level of American film makers story telling ability; violence, sex and horror?
I specifically say American film makers because they turn out this trash as fast as the sun sets every day. And then society wonders why it has behavioral problems … ‘Oh I saw it in the movies so it’s okay’.
Then, if this is not bad enough, the film makers have the audacity to hold a decadent ceremony to congratulate themselves on the smut they produced over the year and they are treated like stars!
What kind of double standard is this in society?
freedom vs. theocracy
Getting rid of lower nature culture is a benefit of theocracy's like Iran. Money rules in the US so if it sells someone will sell it. The Republican US Supreme Court recently ended free elections in the US by ruling that corporations are people and can contribute unlimited amounts of money into elections. We now pledge allegiance to international corporations.
Culture
But what has this to do with the quality of movies produced? If you are willingly to sell your soul in pledging your allegiance to who ever can you not at least add some finesse to it?
Corporations control
Corporations control movies. I can't imagine it costs that much more to improve story quality but it likely has to do with the superficial lower natured character of the corporate executives who have to sell their soul to advance.
touche
Touche.... A rather funny example of this is an interview I read. The author of "The Nick of Time"--that movie in the 90's with Johnny Depp which was told in real time (like 24). Anyways, Depp's character has two hours to complete a mission, or someone dies. Well, the movie's producer kept trying to get the screenwriter to insert a sex scene, because "sex sells, sex sells" ...I think the screenwriter and director were able to keep that absurdity at bay, but still.
The stress of the corporations
Yes I see your point one cannot really concentrate on the finer things in life when one is stressed out in trying to make money. What a terrible life these people must live forcing art through so called corporations. But surely they should realise producing quantity rather than quality is counter-productive as it leads to burn-out and negative returns?
Poor quality works in
Poor quality works in America. You should see what has happened to politics. Republicans discovered that a lie, repeated often enough (quantity), becomes truth. This is a corporate advertising technique.
Materialism, through its entity, the corporation, now has complete control of the US. I wonder if ahriman's incarnation isn't as the corporate entity. The Republican courts have declared the corporation a person with all the rights under the constitution of a person.
I have given up on Obama and feel The Philosophy Of Freedom is the only hope, as with it you don't need any other baggage to become ethical, just your own clear mind.
Politicians are public servants
It is stupidity of the people who believe the often told lie isn’t – it happens everywhere in the world.
Never mind these irksome things are often in place so people do wake up to the philosophy of freedom which in its total understanding enriches happy and healthy people.
The thing is there is nothing wrong in wanting to make money if that is what the political corporations thrive on; it is just how this money is made and how it is put back into society that counts.
As we know money cannot buy love and it must be a very lonely world without love.
Ahriman should rather concentrate on classical literature to soothe his soul instead of trying to be in control all the time he will find this very relaxing. Would you agree - a good read of D.H. Lawrence to help settle his anxiety.
corporations
The only kind of movie that corporate culture would be against would be a movie that challenged people to think about the lie behind individual wealth as something that is deserved.
Corporations could care less if a movie has violence. The owners of corporations are just has happy to encourage movies about talking deer as they are encouraging movies about sex and violence. They want money. We are the people who flock. We determine what makes money.
There is only one kind of movie that Corporate culture would not want us to like. A movie that explicitly calls into question the very presumptions that ground corporate culture.
Corporate culture is not one of the primary causes of all the awful sex and violence in our movies. We are. It will be a glorious era when we begin to demand movies that explicitly challenge the ONE set of presumptions that corporate culture can't allow.
jf
The subjectless economic life
Since the end of the nineteenth century man has been taken out of the control of circulating his own money. Money does business by itself without any regard to what man’s involvement is in the actual vitalization of money.
What is the value of money?
World Economy, Lecture 14, Dornach, 6th August, 1922
‘What is it that really emerges when we think, in this way, that in money in circulation we have a kind of reflection of that element of use and wear which in fact is present throughout the whole range of consumable goods — and even spiritual services are consumable goods for the economic life? In a money which wears out we have a parallel process to goods, commodities, real values, which also wear out. What have we, in effect, if we perceive this parallelism — we can extend it over the entire world-economy — between the real value and the token value? Truly we may describe it essentially as a kind of book-keeping system for the whole world-economy. It is the world's book-keeping. When some item is transferred or delivered, this simply signifies the entry of an item in another place. In actual practice the thing is done by passing money and commodities from hand to hand. The principle is fundamentally the same whether we contrive to record the items in their proper places in an immense book-keeping system embracing the whole world-economy, and so direct things simply by transferring credits, or whether we write out a chit and give it to the person concerned, so that the thing is done in external action. In the circulation of money we have in effect the world's book-keeping. And this is, as everyone can really see for himself, what should be aimed at. For in this way we give back to money the only quality which it can properly have — that of being the external medium of exchange. Look into the depths of economic life, and you will see: Money can be nothing else than this. It is the medium of exchange of services or things done. For in reality men live by the things actually done, not by the tokens thereof.’
Author
As far as I can find out through Google the origin of The Seed seems to be
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/the_seed_a_resolution_for_the.htm...
The author of that blog is Miguel A. Guanipa.
If anyone finds that the trail goes further back, please let us all know.
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