Category Archives: FREE ADVICE

Free Advice about Life, Universe and Other Stuff from Lawrence R. Spencer

...and other stuff, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, LIVES

AESOP’S FABLE: LIFE LESSONS FROM 620 BC

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AESOP’S FABLES are a collection of hundreds of short stories, usually featuring animals impersonating humans, that tell a pithy moral story.  They are precise observations of human behavior made more than 2,500 years ago by a Greek writer / philosopher.  Aesops lived in Greece around the same time the Buddha and Loa-Tze lived in the India and China.  His moral lessons are as relevant now as they were in 620 BCE.  This demonstrates the maxim that “The more things change, the more they stay the same“.  Apparently, this applies even more so to human behavior and misbehavior.  — Lawrence Spencer, 2012

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Aesop (c. 620-564 BC)  was a fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop’s Fables. He was born a slave, and in his lifetime two different masters owned him before being granted his freedom. The slave masters were named, Xanthus and Iadmon, the latter gave him his freedom as a reward for his wit and intelligence. As a freedman he became involved in public affairs and traveled a lot—telling his fables along the way. King Croesus of Lydia was so impressed with Aesop that he offered him residency and a job at his court.

“The popularity of Aesop is also shown by the fact that Plato records that Socrates decided to versify some of his fables while he was in jail awaiting execution.”  -Robert Temple

While on a mission for King Croesus to distribute a certain amount of gold to the people of Delphi in Greece, there was a misunderstanding about how much gold each person was supposed to receive. Aesop became discouraged because the Delphians did not seem appreciative enough of the gift from the King so Aesop decided to take it all back to King Croesus. On his journey back the people of Delhi, who thought he was actively cheating them and giving them a bad reputation, tracked him down. Lloyd W. Daly writes “Apprehensive of his spreading this low opinion of them on his travels, the Delphians lay a trap for Aesop. By stealth they [stashed] a golden bowl from [their] temple in his baggage; then as he starts off through Phocis, they overtake him, search his baggage, and find the bowl. Haled back to Delhi, Aesop is found guilty of sacrilege against Apollo for the theft of the bowl and is condemned to death by being hurled off a cliff.”

READ THE ON-LINE FABLES OF AESOP HERE:  http://www.aesopfables.com/aesopsel.html

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

“The gods help them that help themselves.”

“The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle’s own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.”

“I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath.”

“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”

“Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.”

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

...and other stuff, ALIEN INTERVIEW BOOK, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

120 YEARS AGO

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FRED OTT SNEEZE 1894

“Fred Ott’s Sneeze” by the Edison Manufacturing Company.

This was the first motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.  In the five-second film, one of Thomas Edison’s assistants, Fred Ott, takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. The film was recorded between January 2, 1894 and January 7, 1894.    Source: Wikipedia

ALIEN INTERVIEW

It is truly amazing to me to think that motion pictures did not exist on this planet until as recently as 120 years ago.  This is only about two life times!!!  When my Grandmother was a young woman, motion pictures were a “new thing”!  She lived on a farm in Michigan.  She raised 8 children.

They, along with a lot of other Americans, were farmers.  They grew their own food, and raised chickens, and had a milk cow.  They churned their own butter and plowed hard dirt fields to grown corn and vegetables to feed themselves.

Their wooden house did not have indoor plumbing.  They pumped water from a hand operated water pump in the front yard.  They carried buckets of water into the house and boiled it on a wood-burning stove for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing clothes!

There was no electricity.  The only source of light and energy were candles, a wood burning stove and a fireplace and kerosene lamps.

Their was no indoor bathroom.  They had a small, wooden “out-house” about 30 yards from the main house.  When you needed to take a pee during the night, you used a brass or porcelain bowl that was kept under the bed.  Or, if you were brave enough, you could walk through the snow to the out-house to take a shit in privacy and freeze your ass off!

No air conditioning.  All the doors and windows were left open during the summer.  In the winter time they sat directly in front of the wood-burning stove, or snuggled together underneath piles of blankets in bed as soon as the sun went down! 

Times have certainly changed, technologically, at least in the USA. Do you ever wonder why and how so many technological innovations have been created during the past 120 years?  During the previous 10,000 years of human history there were nearly NO technical advancements!  Why have there been so many during the past 120 years?

Read the book ALIEN INTERVIEW.  You will find some answers in the pages of this book.

VISIT THE WEBSITE for the book at www.alieninterview.org

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

FREE ADVICE, MOVING PICTURES, POETIC NONSENSE

A MAN NEEDS A LITTLE MADNESS

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The film “Zorba The Greek“, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis  (1883 –1957), was nominated for seven and won three Academy Awards in 1964.

QUOTES FROM THE FILM:

“You’ve got everthing except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free. “

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”

“On a deaf man’s door, you can knock forever!”

“God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go. I know because a very wise old Turk told me.”

“Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.”

“You think too much.That is your trouble.Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything. “

“If a woman sleeps alone, it puts a shame on all men. “

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, UNIVERSES

PARTS OF A RELATIONSHIP

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PARTS OF A RELATIONSHIP

Recently, I’ve thought a lot about the subject of “relationships”, in an attempt to live my own life on Earth.  One of the most joyful and agonizing experiences in existence is the successful creation and maintenance of a “relationship”.   It is easy enough to withdraw from relationships and simply give up on them because they can be painful, confusing, frustrating and a lot of hard work!   In human society it is very commonly the source of turmoil, destruction and unhappiness.  If anyone has any more ideas about how to have a successful relationship, I’d like to know….

Here are a few definitions that I think are the most important parts of a “relationship”, in relative order of importance:

RELATIONSHIP

noun:   a state of connectedness between people (especially an emotional connection)

COMMUNICATION

  • noun:   a connection allowing access between persons or places

UNDERSTANDING

  • noun:   an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion

  • noun:   the statement (oral or written) of an exchange of promise

  • adjective:   characterized by understanding based on comprehension and discernment and empathy

RESPONSIBILITY

  • noun:   a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one’s conduct

  • noun:   the social force that binds you to your obligations and the courses of action demanded by that force

FREEDOM

  • noun:   the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

  • noun:   immunity from an obligation or duty

WISDOM

  • noun:   accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment

REALITY

  • noun:   the state of the world as it really is rather than as you might want it to be

LOVE

  • noun:   any object of warm affection or devotion

SEX

  • noun:   all of the feelings resulting from the urge to gratify sexual impulses

ART, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, LIVES, READING MATTER

ONTOLOGICAL CHAUTAUQUAS

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Zen_motorcycleI was interested to read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” as I spent many years of my life riding motorcycles, and most of my life searching for answers to ontological and spiritual questions.

The author, Robert M. Pirsig, in first person, tells his real-life adventure of  a 17-day journey on his motorcycle from Minnesota to Northern California with two friends and his 8 year old son Chris.  The trip is punctuated by numerous philosophical musings and educational diatribes he refers to as “Chautauquas“, a popular method of adult teaching used in rural America during the 1800s.

Robert Pirsig was tested as having an IQ of 170 at the age of 9 years.  His prodigious intellect led him to an epiphany that Western academia and science is based on unsubstantiated bullshit.  Thereafter his personal philosophical investigations eventually drove him to ask questions and find answers that can only be discovered by exploring ones spiritual self.

The “dialogues” the author has with himself while riding his motorcycle across America are tied together by the story of the narrator’s own past self, who is referred to in the third person as Phaedrus (after Plato’s dialogue). Phaedrus, a teacher of creative and technical writing at a small college, became engrossed in the question of what defines good writing, and what in general defines good, or “Quality”.

The book reviews the subject of Western philosophy, touches on Eastern philosophy, including Zen.  The discipline and technical skill of maintaining the motorcycle he is riding is used as an excellent analogue for his explanation of his psychic travels through the barren landscape of soulless Western world, both physically and metaphysically.  Eventually, he resolves the question of “what is quality” through a subjective understanding of spiritual essence.

Fortunately, Mr. Pirsig is still living and has resolved his personal quest sufficiently to continue living in human society long enough to write this excellent book.