Category Archives: Philosophy

The Effect of Words

In the ebb and flow of conversation

Words convey much more than facts

They are used ON you!

 

They can, for example, encourage, chastise, cheer you, pull you down

What they always do, because they are intended to, is to affect you

If you do not realise this, you will become a victim of words

 

Every time someone speaks to you

Ask yourself the questions “Why have they said that?”

And “Why in those words ?”

 

The answers might not suggest a bad reason

Most people do not use words as a weapon

At least not all the time

 

But they do want the words to have an effect.

Hope

Hope neither lends itself to reason

Nor the strictures of the finite

It has little shape but great substance

Which, paradoxically, laughs at Newton’s Laws

 

Instead, the well it draws from is unfathomably deep

Like quantum particles it can be in more than one place at a time

And, as with dark matter, defies observation and containment

It is, and always will be, ephemeral

 

None-the-less, all humanity relies upon it daily

Especially so, in times such as these

 

 

Opined

Only the brave or foolish offer opinions

Like beliefs, they are best kept to oneself;

Even when asked about them

 

No purpose is served by sharing them

They find merit only with those of like mind;

Who do not need convincing

 

For all others, they invite challenge to some orthodoxy

Sleeping dogs, best left to lie

In the midday sun!

The March of Time

Today’s date is made of numbers

Though not traced to a true Day 1

Did time begin with the first Big Bang?

Or the lighting of our sun?

 

Did our own clocks start with a birthday?

Or nine months before in the womb?

While Earth spins and marks days passing

Tick-tock, toward the tomb

 

Every second left us is precious

Wanting neither good nor ill

A fragment of a lifetime

To be bent to serve one’s will

Wisdom

When I am really old….

I will finally understand:

  • Solutions to paradoxes and enigmas

  • Truths politicians dare not speak

  • Mysteries of the ocean floor

  • Limits of the universe

  • A unifying theory of everything

  • Man’s inhumanity to man

  • The purpose of being

These answers should come with great age.

If I can be just be patient and here for a little longer……!

Resolution (A message to self)

Here it is; you have a new chance

To change your lifestyle and enhance

Your health and happiness, or something else

Take control and tighten your belts

 

A new resolution to greet the fresh year

Resolve to succeed and overcome fear

Grasp life by the horns; with both hands

Broaden your mind and visit new lands

 

The only thing that stands in your way…

…Strength and determination every day

But you can do it; yes you can!

Stick to you guns, just follow the plan

The Struggle to Understand

To raise and flatten mountains

To fill and dry up seas

To choose when each leaf lifts

On a softly stirring breeze

 

To mark the fleeting eons

Yet dictate a cell’s decay

To hold the world in orbit

Spinning to pass the day

 

Power wrought by nature

No conscience or regrets

Entropy increases

Obeying laws it sets

 

Is this universal

Across worlds we cannot see?

Begs another question

How can all this be?