The Cool Blue Blog

Impostor

Someone over at Kos is posing as me.

OK, so imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but just so you know there's only one, original, real Cool Blue in the blogosphere and it ain't them.

The Generalist

Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?"

-The Mentat Handbook

[from Children of Dune by Frank Herbert]

Four Things

"O' my son, learn four things and (a further) four things from me. Nothing will harm you if you practise them. That the richest of riches is intelligence; the biggest destitution is foolishness; the wildest wildness is vanity and the best achievement is goodness of moral character.

"O' my son, you should avoid making friends with a fool because he may intend to benefit you but may harm you; you should avoid making friends with a miser because he will run away from you when you need him most; you should avoid making friends with a sinful person because he will sell you for naught; and you should avoid making friends with a liar because he is like a mirage, making you feel far things near and near things far."

- Hazrat Ali ibn Abu Talib

The Rules of Cool

1) Be who you are regardless of what you want to be

2) Never let your morals get in the way of doing what's right

3) Living is an artform, not a chore, and you are the artist.

4) Never make a committment you do not intend to honor; honor your committments no matter the cost

5) Life is complex and messy. Never try to make it less messy. Just do what you can to make things better.

6) People are complex and messy. Never try to make them less messy. Just take them as you find them or not.

7) Never forget a debt you owe. Forget the debts owed you.

8) Love is a creature that must be tracked. But do nothing to disturb the traces, so others may follow as well. And never, ever, stop tracking.

9) Be a dharma bum.

10) "It is dangerous to understand new things too quickly" (Josiah Warren)

11) Fully enjoy where you are and what you are doing right now; soon you may be someplace worse.

New Photos

In the photo logs.

Some pictures from Church Street, family and just some stuff I like.

Check it out

Grandma

"You take this money and you give it to the man over there and you get two tokens. You understand?"

"Yes grandma."

Returning with the coins she took them from my hand but didn't let go of me. I was taller than her but she held my hand anyway.

The shopping bag she carried was from Macy's Herald Square, though we hadn't been there today. Grandma always saved her shopping bags and kept them neatly in a drawer by her sewing machine for trips like this. Right now it contained the sweater which I refused to wear but she insisted that I take.

"You'll catch a chill and get sick," she reasoned.

I can't argue with grandma.