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January 24, 2010
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METAPHYSICS
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Disagreement is inevitable when we search for meaning in the meaningless, or
when we reduce an infinite number of factors into only a handful.
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We say God is on our side when we want to do the Devil's work.
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The visible is one; it is the invisible that is legion.
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Newspapers write more about criminals than law-abiding citizens. Doctors deal more with the sick than with the healthy. And critics deal more with deceivers than with honest men. I am not consistently negative; our reality is.
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What will save us is neither our conception of patriotism nor our degree of self-esteem but our courage to confront and deal with reality.
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January 25, 2010
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A STORY WITH MORALS
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Three friends in a tavern were arguing about the greatest evil in the world, and since they were not Armenian, they were able to reach a consensus: Death, they decided, was the greatest evil. Next they also agreed to search for Death and kill him. During their long search they met an old man who told them where Death lived. They followed the old man's directions but instead of Death they found a pot of gold. To celebrate their good fortune, one of them went to fetch a bottle of wine. While he was gone, the two friends decided to kill him to have his share of gold too. And as soon as he returned they fell on him and killed him, drank the poisoned wine, and they died, because the same idea had occurred to their victim.
MORAL I: If you look for Death, long before you find him, he will find you.
MORAL II: If after a long search you find what you were looking for, you will wish you had not found it.
MORAL III: Gold and friendship are mutually exclusive concepts.
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January 26, 2010
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ARMENIAN PHILOSOPHY
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To express his contempt for me, one of our Turcocentric ghazetajis once called me a “philosopher.” It is true, philosophy has at no time been a favorite subject of ours. Our most famous medieval philosopher, David Anhaght, is remembered for his invincibility in argument, not his originality of ideas. And as far as I know, none of our academics (of which we have over a thousand) has ever produced a text on 20th-century Armenian philosophy, probably because it is not easy to write about nothing. If I were to sum up the dominant philosophical idea of the past century, it would have to be “I hate Turks, therefore I am.”
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AN AMERICAN FALLACY
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With big bucks, you can hire the best brains. But only the kind of brains willing to be subservient to big bucks.
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THIS AND THAT
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I love my fellow Armenians as much as a good Christian loves his executioner -- with one difference: I am not a good Christian.
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Speaking of good Christians: There are those who define a good Muslim as one who goes about murdering infidels. Christians used to do that too but not anymore. These days some good Christians murder only homosexuals, Blacks, abortionists, Jews, and Communists – remember the slogan, “Kill a commie for Christ”).
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It is a well-known fact that swine don't have self-esteem problems.
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January 27, 2010
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INSANITY
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Somewhere Jung explains that there is a woman in every man and a man in every woman, and that this becomes apparent when one reaches middle age.
I once had a friend (may he rest in peace) who believed one reaches middle age only by adopting some form of insanity.
Whereas I am of the opinion that we are born and raised into an insane world and we survive only by adapting ourselves to it.
(To be noted: Jung harbored pro-Nazi sentiments.)
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Under the Sultan, our writers were free to tear our institutions to shreds. Under our own mini-sultans they are free to do so too but only to the opposition and to brainwash children into believing their side is good, the other bad.
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I have never been psychoanalyzed. One could say avoiding shrinks is a luxury only the poor can afford.
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Whenever I think I am smart, I remind myself of the number of times I have been taken in by idiots.
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To believe in miracles is bad enough. To believe one is worthy of them is infinitely worse.
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