Lawrence R. Spencer's Blog, page 228

HOW MANY BOOKS HAVE YOU READ?

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In human experience, written symbols (letters, numbers, musical signs, etc. ) are physical representations of an idea or thought.  Symbols organized into sentences, songs, compositions, formula,  articles or books convey many complex ideas.  These symbols enable communication between people in the physical universe.  Although there a many forms of non-physical communication which we refer to as “emotion” or “telepathy” or “empathy” or “intuition” or “knowing”, the common denominators of human experience or culture is often expressed in books.  When these have been read, understood and compared to other thoughts, we can assume points of view of the various universes we inhabit. When we agree on a our perception of these universes, we call this “reality”.

Which books have helped to shape your reality?  How many books have your read in your life, so far?  How many more books are on your “must read” list?  According to Google, that is busily scanning every book they can get their digitizing hands on, there are about 130 million book titles in the world.  There are more than 2 million NEW book titles published every year (in all languages) . There are approximately 8 billion people in the world.  That is more than 65 book titles per every person in the world.  So, theoretically every person needs to read a minimum of 65 books to reach an “average” level of literacy.  Of course this does not include the avalanche of words available to read that have not been organized into an actual book title, like Twitter and Facebook posting, newspaper and magazine articles and other “non-literature” such as scientific papers, and school textbooks and other propaganda published by governments and corporations.

The largest bookseller on-line is Amazon.com, which has an inventory of only about 1,750,000 titles in English.  That’s only 13 percent of all the book titles  in the world!  This a critically small number of books available to read.  How can one possibly consider themselves to be a literate person?  This does not even include the fact that the majority of books written in the ancient world (prior to 400 AD) were burned by the Christian church!  If you read one book every week 50 for years you would have read only 2,600 books!  According to Google, the average book is 300 pages.  That’s about 75,000 words per book.

As a writer, I am also a reader.  I have often read several books each week during the 50+ years of my reading life, as well as a lot of  printed material, etc.. All together I estimate I’ve read about 4,000 books, so far.  That’s a lot of words — not including the millions of words on the internet — that are not in the form of a book.  Fortunately, there are more than 100,000 book titles available as spoken books — narrated for you by professional actors — on  Audible.com, Librivox.com and sites on the internet.  Now, I can “read” a book with my ears, instead of my  eyes, a fact that I appreciate more and more as I grow older.  I can “read” while I’m walking, driving, jogging, cooking, cleaning, waiting and doing a lot of things that would prevent me from reading with my eyes.  It’s a wonderful age we live in!

So, how do we select the most cherished, life-giving, knowledge-quenching word droplets from the ocean of words?  Having read more than my share of books I can say without any doubt that reading a lot of books does not  make a person “smart”, or “wise”, or “literate”.  However, for me, reading books is usually a more gratifying experience, mentally and spiritually, than watching television or movies or videos.  Books are usually more thoroughly researched, planned, crafted, edited and perfected than other forms of communication.

In this electronic age, when more books are available to us — thanks to digital technology —  than during all of the history of humankind combined, can we expect that humanity would be more well informed and intelligent that ever before?  Books themselves are not wisdom.  If books are not read by people, the knowledge contained in them remains hidden.  They might has well not have been written.

My personal recommendation for your reading or listening book list are the books I’ve written, of course. My view of “reality” is different than most.  My universe is unique, as is yours.  I invite you to share my universe, through my books.

— This blatant self-endorsement is brought to you by Lawrence R. Spencer —

AMBITIOUS ADVICE

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Repost from an article in “Quoteinvestigator.com”:

“The following compelling advice is credited to Mark Twain in self-help books and on websites. It is valuable guidance in my opinion:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

While searching to learn more about the saying I came across another version which used a different wording. The word “people” was replaced with “those”, and “feel” was replaced with “believe”:

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”

Did Twain say or write either of these expressions?

Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI was published in 1938 in the memoir of an extraordinary elocutionist who gave recitals at Chautauquas around the United States. Chautauquas were assemblies that combined entertainment and education by presenting lecturers, preachers, musicians, and other performers to a largely rural audience. Gay Zenola MacLaren wrote in her memoir that she met Mark Twain when she was still a child who aspired to be a great performer. Twain offered her the following counsel:

He opened the door for me himself. As we said good-bye, he put his fingers lightly under my chin and lifted my head up so that my eyes met his.

“Little girl,” he said earnestly, “keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

The date of the meeting was not listed in the book.

In 1901 a review of a performance by MacLaren was published in a Brooklyn, New York newspaper:

She has an almost ventriloquistic power of changing her voice from the light tones of women to the heavier speaking of men, so the recital was thoroughly well balanced and was given with intelligence.

In 1909 the periodical “The Lyceumite and Talent” printed an advertisement for Gay Zenola MacLaren that included a testimonial statement from Mark Twain:

Opinions from Prominent Men

An unusually gifted young lady. Mark Twain.

I do not hesitate to say that I think Miss MacLaren’s work phenomenal. She is a genius. Major James B. Pond.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In 1938 Time magazine reviewed MacLaren’s memoir and noted that she “got her big chance at the New York Chautauqua”. The magazine presented an eclectic list of participants at Chautauquas:

Thereafter she followed the Chautauqua circuit, along with chalk-talk artists, bell ringers, evangelists, yodlers, zither performers, magicians, bagpipe players, ventriloquists and the strange assortment of educators and entertainers who, in brown tents pitched in small towns all over the U. S., spread culture to apathetic audiences before the War.

In 1948 a large compilation of quotations titled “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips” edited by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger was published. The statement was included, and the accompanying citation pointed to MacLaren’s memoir:

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

P. 66—Morally We Roll Along—MacLaren

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READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/23/belittle-ambitions/

SURVIVING ETERNITY

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ONE DOES NOT DISCUSS ETHICS

WITH A SNAKE WHEN IT STRIKES.

ONE DOES NOT SEEK JUSTICE

IN THE JAWS OF A SHARK.

BANKERS, SOLDIERS, POLITICIANS,

AND PRIESTS WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM.

POWER, CONTROL AND POSSESSION

ARE THEIR NATURAL SCHEME.

BEINGS OF GOOD WILL TREAT EACH OTHER

AS THEY WOULD BE TREATED THEMSELVES.

EVERY CREATURE SURVIVES

ACCORDING TO ITS KIND.

GOOD AND EVIL ARE SEEN THROUGH

THE EYES OF PREDATORS AND PREY.

SURVIVAL IS AVOIDING PAIN.

PLEASURE IS LOVE ETERNALLY.

ONE KNOWS THAT SURVIVAL IS A GAME

THAT IMMORTAL SPIRITS CANNOT PLAY

UNLESS THEY FORGET THAT THEY ARE THEY.

______________________________

Lawrence R. Spencer. 2013.

MIMI AND EUNICE

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One of my favorite cartoon commentators!  http://mimiandeunice.com/

READ MORE MIMI AND EUNICE http://mimiandeunice.com/

PRISON

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VISIT THE WEBSITE and BLOG for the book at   www.alieninterview.org and www.alieninterview.org/blog

 

EARTH IS NOT OUR HOME

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To Find a Home from Joe Le Huquet on Vimeo.

TOP SECRET
Official Transcript of the U.S. Army Air Force
Roswell Army Air Field, 509th Bomb Group
SUBJECT: ALIEN INTERVIEW, 27. 7. 1947, 1st Session
“The actual history of Earth is very bizarre.  It is so nonsensical that is it is incredible to anyone on Earth who attempts to investigate it.  A myriad of vital information is missing from it.  A huge conglomeration of non sequitur relics and mythology has been arbitrarily introduced into it.  The volatile nature of the Earth itself cyclically covers, drowns, mixes and shreds physical evidence.
These factors, combined with amnesia and post-hypnotic suggestions, false facades and covert manipulation make  a reconstruction of the factual origins and history of Earth civilizations virtually indecipherable.  Any investigator, no matter how brilliant, is doomed to wallow in a quagmire of inconclusive assumptions, unworkable hypotheses, and perpetual mystery.
“Sophisticated technologies of entrapment and enslavement,  which were developed over millions of years in the “Old Empire”, have been applied to the IS-BEs on Earth with the intention to create a false facade for the prison.  These facades were installed on Earth in totality, all at once.  Every piece is a fully integrated part of the prison system.
This includes a religion of mumbo-jumbo double-speak. Every pyramid civilization uses this as part of a control mechanism to keep the population enslaved by force, by fear and by ignorance. The indecipherable muddle of irrelevant information, geometric designs, mathematical calculation, astronomical alignments, are part of a false spirituality based on solid objects, rather than immortal spirits, in order to confuse and disorient the IS-BEs on Earth.”
“Countless people have spent endless hours attempting to solve the jig-saw puzzle of Egypt and other “Old Empire” civilizations. They are puzzles made of pieces that do not fit.  A question states its own answer.  What is the mystery of Egypt and other pyramid cultures?  Mystery!”

_________________________

Excerpts from the Top Secret transcripts from Roswell, 27 July, 1947. The complete transcript is published in the book ALIEN INTERVIEW, edited by Lawrence R. Spencer

“IS-BE” = Immortal Spiritual BEing”

THE ICY FLAME

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Before Being was the Icy Flame.

You and I and All.

The Flame conceives.

And From that Eternal Fire comes Thought:

Joy and Love and Pain.

We pretend. We betray.

We deceive Our Selves with play.

We invade the dark relentless void with incandescent Light.

Like candles in a forge we play a game that melts the soul.

Each victory drowns the flame within Our Selves.

And yet The Flame still lingers in us all.

We flicker faintly far from The Hearth of Home.

Burn brightly Lonely spark.

Remember You and I and All:

We are the Icy Fire.

— Lawrence R. Spencer, 2012 —

CAT BROCOLLI

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LEAVES OF ART: NATURAYARTE

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SEE MORE OF THE FANTASTIC ART OF LEAF CARVING AT http://naturayarte.blogspot.com/p/que-es-naturayarte.html

 

NO ROBOTIC CRAP

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