If you stare into the abyss

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If you stare into the abyss

Postby OpLan » Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:36 am

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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Project Willow » Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:13 pm

I saw that, and thank goodness every now and then people behave less monstrously to each other. It is indeed astonishing and rare.

At the end I was thinking that espousing faith in human kind is really not a good idea.
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Simulist » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:19 pm

Thank you, OpLan. I really, really needed that today.

That's where I need to direct my attention now.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby norton ash » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:29 pm

Thanks. Spoiler alert: not an abyss, something there.
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:03 pm

.

One of those made me cry.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sun Jun 24, 2012 8:41 am

Cheers
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Jeff » Sun Jun 24, 2012 12:08 pm

I won't say my faith in humanity's exactly restored, but there are some beautiful people there who I needed to see. Thanks.
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:26 pm

Thanks, OpLan.

"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Canadian_watcher » Wed Jun 27, 2012 5:14 pm

the OP made me tear up.
how beautiful, beautiful, beautiful humanity REALLY is.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.-- Jonathan Swift

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Nordic » Fri Jun 29, 2012 2:39 am

Note to self: show this to my son. He's been voicing a concern that the world is pretty fucked up. He's 9.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Six Hits of Sunshine » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:39 pm

Two:

The Tire Iron and the Tamale

Tuesday 10 July 2012


Justin Horner, a graphic designer from Portland, Oregon, tells this story about human goodness:

“During this past year I’ve had three instances of car trouble: a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out-of-gas situation. They all happened while I was driving other people’s cars, which for some reason makes it worse on an emotional level. […]

Each time, when these things happened, I was disgusted with the way people didn’t bother to help. I was stuck on the side of the freeway hoping my friend’s roadside service would show. The people at the gas stations where I asked for a gas can told me that they couldn’t lend them out “for safety reasons,” but that I could buy a really crappy one-gallon can, with no cap, for $15. It was enough to make me say stuff like “this country is going to hell in a handbasket.”

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke any English.

One of those guys stopped to help me with the blowout even though he had his whole family of four in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to three hours with my friend’s big Jeep. I put big signs in the windows that said “NEED A JACK,” and offered money. Nothing. Right as I was about to give up and start hitching, a van pulled over, and the guy bounded out.

He sized up the situation and called for his daughter, who spoke English. He conveyed through her that he had a jack but that it was too small for the Jeep, so we would need to brace it. Then he got a saw from the van and cut a section out of a big log on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top and we were in business. I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones, and I wasn’t careful, and I snapped the head clean off. Damn. No worries: he ran to the van and handed it to his wife, and she was gone in a flash down the road to buy a new tire iron.

The two of us were filthy and sweaty. His wife produced a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead I went up to the van and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I’d send them a gift for being so awesome. She said they lived in Mexico. They were in Oregon so Mommy and Daddy could pick cherries for the next few weeks.

After I said my goodbyes and started walking back to the Jeep, the girl called out and asked if I’d had lunch. When I told her no, she ran up and handed me a tamale.

This family, undoubtedly poorer than just about everyone else on that stretch of highway, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took a couple of hours out of their day to help a strange guy on the side of the road. But we weren’t done yet. I thanked them again and walked back to my car and opened the foil on the tamale (I was starving by this point), and what did I find inside? My $20 bill! I whirled around and ran back to the van. The guy just smiled and, with what looked like great concentration, said in English: “Today you, tomorrow me.” Then he rolled up his window and drove away, with his daughter waving to me from the back. I sat in my car eating the best tamale I’ve ever had, and I just started to cry. It had been a rough year; nothing seemed to break my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn’t handle it.

In the several months since then I’ve changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and once drove 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. But every time I’m able to help, I feel as if I’m putting something in the bank.

Summarized from a message posted on reddit.com and from an editorial published in the New York Time Magazine, March 4, 2011.

* Tamale : mexican dish, a sort of burrito stuffed with meat and vegeables

http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/index. ... le_tamale/



A sweet lesson on patience.

A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard
box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.


http://theburiedlife.tumblr.com/post/27 ... axi-driver
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby harry ashburn » Sat Jul 14, 2012 12:45 am

I've broken down on the road several times... and almost every time, it was a hispanic,... some "legal" some not.. who stopped to help me out.
A skeleton walks into a bar. Orders a beer, and a mop. -anon
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Re: If you stare into the abyss

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Jul 14, 2012 7:52 am

Six Hits of Sunshine wrote:

A sweet lesson on patience.

...

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.


http://theburiedlife.tumblr.com/post/27 ... axi-driver


Man, that brought tears to my eyes. Cheers.
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