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# Tickling Jesus 03'06'12 13:33 link

Today's little gem found on the web:

"I hope you have a spiritual path. It doesn't matter what kind, as long as you have some relationship with a benevolent source of life and love beyond your little ego. Having said that, I also want to advocate the importance of not taking your spiritual path too damn seriously. Grave fanaticism in any form, even if devoted to a noble cause, is dangerous not only to your mental health, but also to that of the people around you. This week it will be especially important for you to be playfully mocking towards that which you hold most sacred. Examples? Put underwear on a Buddha statue, insert a dirty limerick into your prayers to the Goddess, enjoy some heavy petting in a synagogue, visualize yourself tickling Jesus."

-- Rob Brezsny

Via Linkworthy . A few screens below the page linked, precisely here, In an entry named Metaticulous there are some interesting thoughts about MetaFilter.
Which made me nostalgic for a moment. I haven't gone there in two months.
I haven't had a drop of alcohol either, and only once three puffs of a joint. My life has gained a lot of focus since doing the Miracle of Love Intensive.
It's not dogmatic - when it's time, I'll enjoy a beer, smoke some weed or read MeFi again. Just that in the moments when I would have felt like it, it doesn't feel important enough. I want to stay focussed and sharp, and I can relax while doing that. I can dance wildly and sing, I can enjoy Italian icecream on the Nieuwmarkt, and order alcohol-free beers on a sunny terrace without even thinking about emberrassment.
And you won't hear me complaining about dates, either.
Feels mighty good actually.
I'm off to Munich again - to the Intensive, this time to staff. It's a great thing that anyone who has done it can come back to help out as a volunteer. I'm looking forward to a week of giving selflessly, if only because there won't be any time to stop and think about myself. Seriously, it's a great opportunity.

# Some Salam Pax 03'06'11 21:48 link

I'm not keeping up with the story of the famous Baghdad Blogger very well, but here are two interesting links:
Jeff Jarvis' Buzzmachine has a number of balanced entries, this link is to an interview SP gave to an austrian magazine (to his roommate at the time when he was studying).
And this entry from Salam Pax himself made me happy for a moment:
(this is re: comments he's getting on his parents being part of the elite)

My mother, a sociologist who was very happy in pursuing her career at the ministry of education decided to give up that career when she had to choose between becoming Ba.ath party member and quitting her job, she became a housewife. My father, a very well accomplished economist made the same decision and decided to become a farmer instead.
You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell.s 1984 in my hands, a heavy read for a 14 year old with bad English. But that banned book started a process and gave me the impulse to look at the world I live in a different way.

Imagine that for a moment. Living on the inside of a dictatorship, maybe even worse tha n Orwell's Oceania, holding on to a copy of Orwell's 1984 - and then even letting your 14-year old son read it.
That is brave. That is refusing to surrender. That is humanity.

# Simon Norfolk 03'06'11 13:25 link

Saw (part of the) Naarden Photo Festival sunday, and Simon Norfolk's Afghanistan Chronotopia was stunning. Wonderful photos, technically perfect, esthetically pleasing, as if they were lifted from a glossy; and then, on second sight, you realize what it is you are seeing.

# "Salam Pax worked for me" 03'06'06 15:41 link

Salam Pax is real.
'How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me. By Peter Maass'.
[Slate]
... and he's been signed up by The Guardian !
I like this. Good that this story, so far at least, has unravelled in about the best way it could.

# The Matrix Dissected 03'06'01 16:53 link

Ken Mondschein dissects The Matrix Reloaded. [this is good]