Why ride a bicycle?

Today I rode from my house to the new Hub Housing Cooperative building (about 4 miles) to meet with some of the other members and a contractor that may bid on our remodeling work (green resources requested). Then I rode to my friend Jodi’s new place (about 9 miles) and then home (about 5 and a half miles).

From Why ride a bicycle?:

A Zen teacher once asked his students why they rode bicycles. One said he rode to carry potatoes. Another cycled to observe the world. A third said it cleared the mind, and a fourth said cycling put him in harmony with all sentient beings. The Zen master was pleased, but when the fifth replied, “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle,” the teacher sat at the student’s feet and said, “I am your student.”

categories: bike

Keelhauling: Q-Drum – rolling water

This post led me to this post which finally led me to Q-Drum for hauling water. Cool idea.

gmail invites

Gmail is a web-based email (similar to hotmail and yahoo mail in that respect). One key difference is that it provides almost infinite amounts of space so you never really have to delete anything. Plus, since it’s from google, it’s really easy to search for stuff. Anyway, it’s an invitation-only service right now, but I have 48 invitations available (not very exclusive, is it?!). Let me know if you’d like one.

edited to add links to actual invites so you don’t have to email me to ask for one (if the first one doesn’t work, try the 2nd and so on – if they’re all used up, let me know in the comments and I’ll post some more)
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-54b9d844bd-73504644a2-5010cf4cb1
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-54b9d844bd-c8e11083c8-d0b4f0bc46
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-54b9d844bd-78d4c030b0-b7e07659d0
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-54b9d844bd-5262710dc5-89d709a429
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-54b9d844bd-44868f1c76-4d95668d98

Chicago Social Forum – Call for proposals

Another Chicago is Possible!
Call for Proposals for Chicago Social Forum
April 30^th-May 1^st 2005 Location TBA

The 2005 Chicago Social Forum aims to be even bigger than the first, and to that end, we need your help. The first Chicago Social ForumChicago Social Forum held in January 2004 drew more than 500 hundred participants who came together to share ideas, network for effective action, and participate in open workshops on a multitude of topics including affordable housing, NAFTA, police brutality, gentrification, the Illinois Death Penalty, and globalization. Now is the time to work even more vigorously toward positive change through dialogue and collective action.

The Chicago Social Forum (CSF) brings together organizers, community leaders, activists and artists from all across the City who believe in progressive change and social justice and are working to make it happen. It is an open meeting space that brings together people from a wide variety of struggles and interests to discuss the social, economic, political and environmental issues that affect our local and global communities.

Participating organizations and individuals may sponsor or conduct:

• Workshops
• Presentations
• Solidarity meetings
• Cultural or artistic performances and exhibitions

We will acknowledge receipt of your request by March 23, and will provide a response by April 9.

For more information or to have the attachment emailed to you, contact: Stephanie Dernek 312-641-5151 or Kelsa Rieger at 847-476-7009

Humanize the Earth: The Inner Look I, II & III

At tonight’s weekly meeting, we read and discussed the first three chapters from the Inner Look, the first book of Silo’s Humanize the Earth, from which this blog gets its name. Humanize the Earth can be found in Collected Works vol I.

I. Meditation

1. Here it tells how the non-meaning of life can be converted into meaning and fulfillment.
2. Here are joy, love of the body, of nature, of humanity, and of the spirit.
3. Here sacrifices, feelings of guilt, and threats from the beyond are rejected.
4. Here the worldly is not opposed to the eternal.
5. Here it tells of the inner revelation at which all arrive who carefully meditate in humble search.

II. Disposition to Comprehend

1. I know how you feel because I can experience your state, but you do not know how to experience the things I am speaking of. Therefore, if I speak to you without self-interest of that which makes the human being happy and free, it is worth your while to try to comprehend.
2. Do not think that you will arrive at understanding by arguing with me. You may argue if you believe that through opposition your understanding will become clearer, but it is not the appropriate path in this case.
3. If you ask me what attitude is appropriate, I will tell you that it is to meditate profoundly and without haste on what is explained here.
4. If you reply that you are busy with more urgent things, I will answer that since your wish is to sleep or to die, I will do nothing to oppose it.
5. Nor should you argue that you dislike my way of presenting things, for you do not criticize the peel when you like the fruit.
6. I state things in the way I consider appropriate, not as might be desired by those who aspire to things remote from inner truth.

III. Non-Meaning

After many days I discovered this great paradox: Those who bore failure in their hearts were able to illuminate the final victory, while those who felt triumphant were left by the wayside like vegetation whose life is muted and diffuse. After many days, coming from the darkest of darkness, I arrived at the light, guided not by teachings but by meditation.

Thus, I told myself on the first day:

1. There is no meaning in life if everything ends with death.
2. All justification for actions, whether these actions are despicable or admirable, is always a new dream that leaves only emptiness ahead.
3. God is something uncertain.
4. Faith is something as variable as reason and dreams.
5. “What one should do” may be thoroughly discussed, but in the end there is nothing that definitively supports any position.
6. The “responsibility” of those who commit themselves to something is no greater than the responsibility of those who do not.
7. I move according to my interests, and this makes me neither a coward nor a hero.
8. “My interests” neither justify nor discredit anything.
9. “My reasons” are no better than the reasons of others, nor are they worse.
10. Cruelty horrifies me, but neither because of this nor in itself is it better or worse than kindness.
11. What I or others say today is of no value tomorrow.
12. To die is not better than to live or never to have been born, but neither is it worse.
13. I discovered, not through teachings but through experience and meditation, that there is no meaning in life if everything ends with death.

Next week we’ll continue, moving out way through this work. Please join us, in person or here in the comments, or if you’re interested, we can arrange to have you here using a voice-enabled internet connection.

categories: Humanist Movement personal work

Just noticed (10Feb05) that this didn’t get published last week so publishing it now.

we have our building!

My closed on our building late last month. This means that the Hub Housing Cooperative is that much closer to being a reality. Right now I suppose we’re a landlord co-op. Not so great, but we intend to be landlords of the non-sucky type. Tenants will be moving out this spring and we’ll be doing a bit of construction and then moving in. Watch this space for open house details.

categories: housing co-op

laptops for africa update

Several weeks ago I mentioned my experiment of getting old laptops ready to take to Africa. I now have 5 of these in my possession, but only 4 at home. The 5th is still in the box at my office. Tonight I finally got around to actually seeing if I could get them into shape. Since they all have Win98 installed already, my plan is to simply strip off any non-essential software, use Windoze update to update them, equip them with a compression utility and the fichasplus database we’re using for the humanist movement and make sure they can transfer their data to an internet cafe and attached to an email to be mailed to me later.

The first two machines I tried were unable to connect to the internet. Not sure why. They each have a PCMCIA slot and I tried a couple of different modem cards in them. No dice. The third machine seems to have an internal modem but that didn’t work. One of the PCMCIA card modems did work there, however so I’m spending a couple of hours with windoze update. Any thoughts on what to try with these other two?

I’ll get around to trying #4 and getting #5 home one of these days as well.

Redundant restatements of what was said before

Was just reading about a PA announcement starting with Attention All Personnel and I was reminded of my personal pet peave about the PA at O’hare airport. It says, “Do not leave baggage left unattended. Baggage left unattended will be removed by the Chicago Police Department.” That’s not a typo. It’s a recorded announcement that repeatedly (over and over) says “Do not leave baggage left unattended.” Unreal.