A little light philosophy -I'm trying to sleep!

So I was sat in my garden the other day - I started off practising T'ai Chi but after admitting I'd forgotten the steps, I sat down and meditated for a while, looking at the garden. I noticed some litter in the grass. A can of coke, an old plastic wrapper and an empty tea candle. I stepped carefully into the grass and picked up the tea candle and that got me thinking (like I always do after T'ai Chi). What right do I have to remove this tea candle? What if the micro environment created by this tea candle had enabled some insect to survive and create a home there? Just because I see it as litter, does not objectively make it so and therefore I returned to my question, what right do I have to alter my environment in this way? In any way?

What are the indelible human rights? What does it mean to have a right to something at all? Do we have a right to the air that we breathe?

If we assume that we do have the right to the air that we breathe, what gives us this right? Is it our lungs? The fact that we can use the air to breathe gives us the right to use the air? Or is it an indelible right for any living creature to continue its own life?

This may seem unimportant, the ravings of a madman or both but the fact is we are stepping closer and closer to what the ancients would have considered the domain of the gods. We can create and destroy so much of the world at a whim - and not just corporations or kings or countries but the individual also has this power in a growing respect. These mundane or nonsensical ramblings about whether I had the right to move that empty tea candle extends beyond such trivialities and into the realm of the tangible, the significant and these questions of what right do we have are going to become more pervasive as the years go on and technology lifts us in its hands and carries us into the future.

1000 page views - disqus and more!

First the 'and more'. I'm finally on google searches! I'm so happy a tear is welling in the corner of my keyboard! Check it out yourself, go to google and type - "Write drunk; edit sober" -Ernest Hemingway - and I'm like the 5th result! (is it the same for everybody?) Anyway it feels like I've made it now that I've shown up in a Google search somewhere :)

Secondly the disqus - if you scroll down to the bottom (and please do :D), you'll see a new comment widget which allows you to comment with facebook, with twitter or any number of different ways including registering for a disqus commenting account if somehow you don't have facebook, twitter, g+ or  (takes seconds and you don't have to leave this page!) - Anyway you finally have a voice! Use responsibly ;P

And finally the 1000 page views - I've been plugging away for just over two months with this blog and I've resisted posting every 100 page views but I feel like 1000 is a nice milestone to brag about a little :) Now I promise you won't hear from me on the subject again until at least 5,000 or 10,000 (I havn't decided yet)


Okay okay, I'll leave you in peace now, but thank you for reading, I hope you've learnt something, or laughed at something in my blog these past few months. Or maybe you've just enjoyed watching the train wreck that is my degree flying past while I focus on this blog too much!

+ + + + + + + + +
Lots of love, Dan
+ + + + + + + + +

Turn off the air conditioner, go outside, love thy neighbour!

HOW MANY "LIKES" CAN I GET FOR THIS IDEA - Writing.Com

Follow the link - I ran into this post (article?) on writing.com and it's really sensible - give it a good read if you have time, it's not too long.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Follow me on twitter @dancohen447
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

A Nymph Beneath a Wishing Tree

Can you mend a broken heart?
My pain will cause the leaves to part,
Revealing solely unto me
A nymph beneath a wishing tree.

The softest skin I ever saw.
I've stood here in this place before.
I'm holding on, I fear too much!
Your fearless face I dread to touch.

For what, I fear, will come to me?
Devoured 'neath a wishing tree.
Alas, my fear, it was in vain
And here I stand, eyes filled with shame.

As I am forced to watch you leave
As gently as the forest breathes.
I turn my back and fairly step
Down from this stage where I once slept

And wonder, almost willingly,
"What waits for me beneath the tree
I visit next". My strength is sapped
Yet here I only feel trapped.

So I must go, make haste, set tread
And power onwards through the dread.
Until I find a place of hope,
With endless travel, I must cope.

I'll wander almost wilfully
To seek a place where I can be,
To drown my fears in icy pool
With waters still and forest's rule.