SPILLING THE BEANS

Quotations and sayings are said to be encapsulated knowledge, wisdom and wit by "great men," to be  remembered, inspired and even practiced like a good student by lesser mortals -- a condescending attitude typical of the gurus of religion!

In fact, some people look for advice and inspiration on what their leaders, gurus and religions have to preach on certain matters and follow them to the letter with a feeling of righteousness.

Not so to me. To me it's quite a different thing. I like quotations for the opinions and comments put succinctly -- they'd better be short and sweet or I skip them -- and in an interesting, witty, sarcastic and cynical manner on various topics. It's like a brief  and informal exchange of views among friends which may entertain and even enlighten each other without being didactic or dogmatic.

It is with this approach in mind that I wrote this small selection of my own thoughts which I hope will perk up people's interest, entertain them, and also make them think. In short, it's just a comment or a remark -- nothing more.

*

So how do I get my ideas for quotations?  Well ...

I pluck them from thin air
I grab them blowing in the wind
And I read the invisible
writing on the wall

That's how and where I get them. So here goes:

***

LIFE

Life is nature come alive -- fierce, barbaric and ugly! 

Life is a free concert to which nobody came -- or could be invited.

Life to us may seem like a miracle of miracles, but to the rest of the universe it's a much ado about nothing, a storm in a teacup, a flash in the pan, and our "home" just an anthill in the backyard. We are truly the flotsam and jetsam of the universe.

Life is what you make of it. There is no inherent "meaning" or purpose in life. To ask for the "meaning of life" is to ask for the "meaning" or purpose of the Big Bang! Hey man, shit happens!

Life is not a journey, and we're not travelers. "Journey" and "traveler" imply an intended destination,   skipping or briefly touching points in between. Surely, we're not intentionally heading towards the boneyard to keep a date with the worms!

If anything, we're just running around in circles -- for food, sex, money, power and what have you. -- until we gradually and unintentionally find ourselves at death's door from which there's no escape. Life and death are a given. We didn't ask to be born; neither did we ask to die.

There is no life after death -- only death after life.



HUMANS

Mother Nature has put all her eggs in one basket -- we stick together and get fried together.

Humans are the misbegotten and orphaned children of Mother Nature. Abandoned at birth and left to fend for ourselves, we made it through sheer luck and by lifting ourselves by the bootstraps. No parents, no teachers, no guardians, no guides -- just us helpless and disowned waifs and strays. It's worse than leaving a newborn at the garbage dump -- at least someone would have noticed or heard the cry and rescued the baby.

There is an obvious lack of quality control when it comes to manufacturing humans. If humans were goods, the warehouses of the world would be bursting with rejected humans.

Man's achievements are monumental. So are his follies and idiocies.

We are the children of virgin birth by Mother Nature, who herself was the result of a virgin birth caused by the Big Bang. Then we split ourselves into two -- and the rest is history.

Zillions of planets; nowhere else to live!


MODERN MAN

   

Scratch a "modern man" and you'll find a wild-eyed savage underneath.

Modern man is like a cannibal wearing a dinner jacket and feasting on human flesh with silver spoon and fork -- in a magnificent dining hall studded with objet d'art and classical music in the background.

Civilizations have not succeeded in adequately reining in the ugly side of human nature.

Modern man is like a new computer with an out-of-date operating system. You cannot fully update modern man and make him change with the times.


DEATH

Death is the ultimate painkiller.

We're on death row ever since a sperm united with an egg inside the womb.

Death does not only work on first-come-first-served basis. It also welcomes the queue jumper and the gate-crasher.

Death does not kill. It only reaps what nature has sown. Thus, the Grim Reaper.

Death is the flip side of the coin of life. You can't have one without the other.

We sow seeds of life; Death reaps the harvest.

Death was meant to phase out the old generation and make way for the new, prevent dangerous overpopulation, and to make do with our limited natural resources. If death swaps places with immortality our fate would be, well, worse than death.

We're multiplying faster than death can get rid of us. We're Hydra's head sprouting new ones even as the Grim Reaper chops away at the old. In the end though, Mother Nature, as always, will have the last word.

The door of death is always wide open -- you can walk in anytime. Trouble is, you can't walk out of it ever.

A farewell to life; an unsubscribing from existence; going underground forever; finally "see you in your dreams."

SUICIDE

  

Suicide is the "escape clause" in the compact of life.

Suicide is an empowerment given us by nature as the final solution to our intractable problems. It also shows that we are masters of our own bodies and have the right to decide whether we live or die.

Nature allows you to be your own judge, jury and executioner. Use your powers wisely. Remember: there's no room for mistakes.

I've been postponing my suicide so often and for so long that I can now simply die of ripe old age.

The trouble with suicide is that it's mostly a highly emotional and impulsive action. If given a cooling off period, you might even change your mind.

Death to suicide: "Psst, we're all going that way, so what's the hurry?"

Suicide is a DIY way to die. We thumb our noses at death and gate-crash, instead of waiting for our turn. We are thus death's uninvited guests.

RELIGION

Religion is organized superstition with bells and whistles.

Religion is the mother of all superstitions and the longest-running scam in the world.

Religion is a firewall against reason and common sense. It is a blind belief which only requires unquestioning obedience by the naive and gullible masses.

Religions are divisive and confrontational -- just like in politics. Also, truth is the first casualty in religions -- just as in war and politics.

Religion is a classic example of how highly intelligent people can become childish and emotionally attached to fairy-tales and irrational behavior when relaxing from their serious work.

Religionists march to the dodgy gurus' drumbeat and end up at each other's throats.

Religionists: the people whom religions made mad
Extremists: They suffer from a bad case of religion overload
Conversions: they trample upon their own religion and suck up to another equally stupid one
Crisis of faith: a kind of religious indigestion
Atheism: the right but bitter medicine to fix 'em all

Religions are default cultures we are born into. It is thus a sexually and culturally-transmitted disease.

Prayers are the next best thing to doing nothing for the poor, the sick and the desperate. All you have to do is say: "I'll pray for you."

Religion is a god-awful lot of superstition
Theism is a load of godswallop
Monotheism is the desert god's empty boast
And polytheism is, well, one god too many ...

It seems some women hate religion not for its falsehood but for its misogynist content.

Phony atheists hate religion because their prayers went "unanswered" -- not because it's out and out bullshit.


ATHEISM

Atheism is not an option. It's a fact of life, it's in your face, it's self-evident, and it's unavoidable.

You're an atheist if you can say "nuts!" to religion.

Atheism in its widest sense is the rubbishing of all falsehoods, including superstitions such as religion. That is the essence of atheism.

Atheism is a truth serum which does not require a six-inch needle to administer.

Agnostics are reluctant atheists. They ignore the fact that there is no middle ground between atheism and religion -- just a yawning gap.

New Atheists are falsely accused of carrying out a crusade against religion. The atheists in turn reply that they are only religiously avoiding and countering a superstition. Amen!

Atheism is reason unchained. Atheism is thinking outside the box. Atheism is freedom from superstition.

The genie of atheism is out of the bottle; there's no going back in.

NATURE, REALITY

Reality brooks no nonsense. It demands respect and strict observance, and woe betide those who dare to play the fool with reality.

Mother Nature doesn't know what she's doing. Mother Nature doesn't know what she has done. Mother Nature is blind, deaf, dumb and mechanical. Her "religion" is the laws of nature.


GOD

Man never really feared God; man only feared man.

God is the child of man. In fact, all gods are the children of man. Without man there are no gods -- only Mother Nature, an atheist. So grow up, get real, and get a life!

If gods have DNA it would show they are the children of man.

Gods can't even ruffle a baby's downy hair. That's how "all-powerful" they are.

Gods are conspicuous by their absence from the real world.

God is the guru when the guru's high on hashish. The Devil is the guru when the guru's drunk. Such is the Jekyll and Hyde personality of the desert god.

God: the fantastic powers attributed to me by the gurus seem highly exaggerated. But I love them all, so keep them coming.

God is the coolest cat this side of the universe. His imaginary nature makes him innocent of all the lies the gurus and their sycophants tell about him.

Conversion is embracing a new god while the old god bites the dust.

Truth be told, the guru is the god of God, and the guru's raves and rants God's religion.

It's a plain and obvious fact that the guru is the maker, mentor, minder and mouthpiece of God. Any sane and thinking person can see it.

Catastrophes happen when God gets up from the wrong side of the bed and goes on a killing spree which his own devotees call the "Act of God."

Gods and religions are the bread and butter of gurus and godfellas everywhere. God brings the bacon home to the godfellas, courtesy of the hard-earned money of the gullible theosaurs.

Godfellas are abandoning the "house of God" in droves and taking up an honest living for a change. At last conscience has caught up with them. No more peddling fairy-tales and other nonsense and shake down the clueless masses for a living.


MORALITY

Conscience is probably the best keeper of morality --- especially with a bit of help from law and order.

Conscience acts on the feedback we get from our actions. Conscience is persistent and not easy to shake it off. And conscience relies on morality to make it work. The best way to respond to it is to listen to it and make things right.


How many millions of our own kind have we killed and maimed since antiquity?
How many billions of helpless and terrified fellow creatures have we slaughtered and eaten -- apart from other uses -- so far?
How many humans and their hearth and home are still at risk of death and destruction because of our unpredictable whimsies and passions for violence and war?
And we call ourselves moral creatures?


SEX

Save your blow jobs for your birthdays, the candles need it!

Virginity is a juicy fruit waiting to be plucked.

Marriage takes the romance out of love.

Copulation was apparently meant for population. Not any more. Now it's copulation all the way and population is just a by-product, wanted or unwanted.

A roll in the haystack and nature does the rest. How nice!

Some people would think a nation is technologically-advanced if its prostitutes and massage girls start wearing ISO badges on their breasts.

RETIREMENT

Old is gold that has lost much of its glitter.

Retirees face a "your money or your life" problem. No, it's not about meeting highwaymen by any chance. It's about whether their nest egg or their lives that will last longer.

Young people live on their actions, the old on their reputation.

MISCELLANEOUS

Familiarity also breeds tolerance, acceptance, and even love and marriage between different races and cultures.