Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour.
Maverick /ˈmav(ə)rɪk/ means an unorthodox or independent-minded person.
Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova, commonly known as Baba Vanga, was a Bulgarian mystic and herbalist. Blind since early childhood, Baba Vanga spent most of her life in the Rupite area in the Kozhuh mountains in Bulgaria.
“What is eudaimonia?
Eudaimonia is often translated as happiness or genuine happiness. A somewhat better translation would be human flourishing, the way to reach the perfect life in so far as perfection is attainable by humanity. Something not to be found in outer means but, according to Plotinus, something found within the human spirit, itself.
Socrates thought all human beings wanted eudaimonia more than anything else and that virtue was both the seed and the fruit. Virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety and wisdom guaranteed a good and happy life. He contrasted eudaimonia with the life that seeks after honour (modern fame) and pleasure (modern hedonism) because that does nothing for the state of ones soul and thus can never lead to the ‘incomparably more important’ eudaimonia.
Epicurus went even further down this road and said hedonism was the most ethical way of life since pleasure was intrinsically good and pain intrinsically bad. This is different from the way we currently think about hedonism because he thought virtue would bring the most pleasure and so, naturally, everyone would try to be the most virtuous, while nowadays virtue is often viewed as weak or archaic.. it only distances us from our pain and difficult personal issues, but also from our own authentic spirituality, stranding us in a metaphysical limbo, a zone of exaggerated gentleness, niceness, and superficiality.”
Dive into this fascinating passage from Stewart Brand about our relationship to different time scales:
“The mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson makes a related observation about human society: The destiny of our species is shaped by the imperatives of survival on six distinct time scales. To survive means to compete successfully on all six time scales. But the unit of survival is different at each of the six time scales. On a time scale of years, the unit is the individual. On a time scale of decades, the unit is the family. On a time scale of centuries, the unit is the tribe or nation. On a time scale of millennia, the unit is the culture. On a time scale of tens of millennia, the unit is the species. On a time scale of eons, the unit is the whole web of life on our planet. Every human being is the product of adaptation to the demands of all six time scales. That is why conflicting loyalties are deep in our nature. In order to survive, we have needed to be loyal to ourselves, to our families, to our tribes, to our cultures, to our species, to our planet. If our psychological impulses are complicated, it is because they were shaped by complicated and conflicting demands.”
“A study from the International Journal of Epidemiology outlines a biological phenomenon known as microchimerism. During pregnancy, the mother and child exchange small quantities of cells. The ongoing cellular presence of this child in the mother’s body later in life is called microchimerism. Microchimerism means every mother has a biological connection with every child created in her womb at a cellular level until she dies. This cellular situation was discovered when researchers found male DNA in a woman who had never given birth. In questioning this woman after the Y chromosomes were discovered in her brain, they learned she had aborted a child. Researchers theorized that her aborted child must have been a boy and that some of his DNA remained in her body. Cells of unborn children remain in the bodies of their mothers – whether they are aborted or brought to birth.
If you have never experienced an abortion, understand that many around you may have made this choice. Whenever the abortion topic is discussed, please offer compassionate statements to potential post-abortive listeners.”