TIME HYPNOSIS

Somewhere in Time is a 1980 American romantic fantasy drama film directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It is a film adaptation of the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer.

Superman plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes obsessed with a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. 

Through self-hypnosis, he wishes himself back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour), but comes into conflict with Elise’s manager, William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer), who fears that romance will derail her career and resolves to stop him.

In 1972, college theatre student Richard Collier celebrates the debut of his new play. During the celebration, an elderly woman places a pocket watch in his hand and pleads, “Come back to me.” Richard does not recognize the woman, who returns to her own residence and dies in her sleep that same night.

Eight years later, Richard is a successful playwright living in Chicago. While struggling with writer’s block, he decides to take a break from writing and travels to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. While exploring the hotel’s hall of history, he becomes enthralled with a vintage photograph of Elise McKenna, a beautiful and famous early-20th century stage actress. Upon further research, he discovers she is the same woman who gave him the pocket watch. Richard visits Laura Roberts, Elise’s former housekeeper and companion. While there, he discovers a music box that plays the 18th variation of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, his favorite musical piece. Among Elise’s personal effects is a book on time travel written by his old college professor, Dr. Gerard Finney. Richard becomes obsessed with traveling back to 1912 and meeting Elise, whom he has fallen in love with.

Richard seeks out Professor Finney, who believes he briefly time traveled through the power of self-suggestion. Finney warns Richard that such a process would leave one very weak physically, perhaps dangerously so. Richard is determined to try. Dressed in an early 20th-century suit, he removes all modern objects from his hotel room and attempts to will himself to 1912 using tape-recorded suggestions. The attempt fails because he lacks real conviction, but after finding a hotel guest book from 1912 containing his signature, Richard realizes he will eventually succeed.

Richard hypnotizes himself again, this allowing his absolute faith in his eventual success to serve as the engine that transports him back to 1912. Richard finds Elise walking by the lake. Upon meeting him she asks, “Is it you?” Her manager, William Fawcett Robinson, abruptly intervenes and sends Richard away. Although Elise is initially uninterested, Richard pursues her until she agrees to accompany him on a stroll the next morning. During a boat ride, Richard hums the theme from the 18th variation of opus 43, a tune Elise has never heard before as it has yet to be written. Richard asks what Elise meant by, “Is it you?” She reveals that Robinson has predicted she will meet a man who will change her life, and that she should be afraid. Richard shows Elise the pocket watch she will give him in 1972.

Richard attends Elise’s play where she gives an impromptu monologue dedicated to him. During the intermission, Elise poses formally for a photograph but seeing Richard, breaks into a radiant smile. It is the same image Richard saw 68 years later. Afterward, Richard receives an urgent message from Robinson requesting a meeting. Robinson wants Richard to leave Elise, saying it is for her own good. When Richard says he loves her, Robinson has him bound and locked inside the stables. Robinson then tells Elise that Richard has left, though she does not believe him and professes her love for Richard.

“Superman wakes the next morning and frees himself. The acting troupe has already left for Denver, though Elise has returned to the hotel to find him. They go to her room and make love. They agree to marry and Elise promises to buy Superman a new suit, as his is about a decade out of style. 

Inside one of the suit pockets, Superman discovers a penny with a 1979 mint date. This modern item breaks the hypnotic suggestion, pulling Superman into the present as Elise screams in terror.

Superman awakens back in 1980. His attempts to return to 1912 are unsuccessful. After wandering the hotel grounds despondently, he returns to his room and, physically weakened by the time travel and brokenhearted, dies in despair. His spirit is drawn into the afterlife where he is reunited with Elise.”

BALDER

“As Isaac aged, He became blind and was uncertain when He would die, so He decided to bestow Esau’s birthright upon him. 

He requested that Esau go out to the fields with his weapons (quiver and bow) to kill some venison. 

Isaac then requested that Esau make “savory meat” for Him out of the venison, according to the way He enjoyed it the most, so that He could eat it and bless Esau.

Rebecca overheard this conversation. 

It is suggested that She realised prophetically that Isaac’s blessings would go to Jacob, since She was told before the twins’ birth that The Older Son would serve The Younger. 

Rebecca blessed Jacob and she quickly ordered Jacob to bring her two kid goats from their flock so that he could take Esau’s place in serving Isaac and receiving his blessing. 

Jacob protested that His Father would recognise their deception since Esau was HAIRY and he himself was SMOOTH-SKINNED. 

He feared His Father would curse him as soon as he felt him, but Rebecca offered to take the curse Herself, then insisted that Jacob obey ONLY Her.

Jacob did as His Mother instructed and, when he returned with the kids, Rebekah made the savory meat that Isaac loved. Before she sent Jacob to His Father, she dressed him in Esau’s garments and laid goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.”

“I heard a voice that cried,

Balder the beautiful

Is dead, is dead 

- I knew nothing about Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky, I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale, and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it. 

The reader who finds these three episodes of no interest need read this book no further, for in a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else. 

For those who are still disposed to proceed I will only underline the quality common to the three experiences; it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. 

I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. 

Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. 

Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. 

But then it is a kind we want. 

I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. 

But then Joy is never in Our Power and Pleasure often is. 

I cannot be absolutely sure whether the things I have just been speaking of happened before or after the great loss which befell our family and to which I must now turn. 

There came a night when I was ill and crying both with headache and toothache and distressed because my mother did not come to me. 

That was because she was ill too; and what was odd was that there were several doctors in her room, and voices, and comings and goings all over the house and doors shutting and opening. It seemed to last for hours. 

And then My Father, in tears, came into my room and began to try to convey to my terrified mind things it had never conceived before. 

It was in fact cancer and followed the usual course; an operation (they operated in the patient’s house in those days), an apparent convalescence, a return of the disease, increasing pain, and death. 

My Father never fully recovered from this loss. 

Children suffer not (I think) less than their elders, but differently. 

For us boys the real bereavement had happened before our mother died. 

We lost her gradually as she was gradually withdrawn from our life into the hands of nurses and delirium and morphia, and as our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing, as the house became full of strange smells and midnight noises and sinister whispered conversations. 

This had two further results, one very evil and one very good. 

It divided us from our father as well as our mother. They say that a shared sorrow draws people closer together; I can hardly believe that it often has that effect when those who share it are of widely different ages. 

If I may trust to my own experience, the sight of adult misery and adult terror has an effect on children which is merely paralysing and alienating. Perhaps it was our fault. Perhaps if we had been better children we might have lightened our father’s sufferings at this time. 

We certainly did not. 

His nerves had never been of the steadiest and his emotions had always been uncontrolled. 

Under the pressure of anxiety his temper became incalculable; he spoke wildly and acted unjustly. 

Thus by a peculiar cruelty of fate, during those months the unfortunate man, had he but known it, was really losing his sons as well as his wife. 

We were coming, my brother and I, to rely more and more exclusively on each other for all that made life bearable; to have confidence only in each other. 

I expect that we (or at any rate I) were already learning to lie to him. 

Everything that had made the house a home had failed us; everything except one another. 

We drew daily closer together (that was the good result) - two frightened urchins huddled for warmth in a bleak world. 

Grief in childhood is complicated with many other miseries. 

I was taken into the bedroom where my mother lay dead; as they said, ‘to see her’, in reality, as I at once knew, ‘to see it’. 

There was nothing that a grown-up would call disfigurement - except for that total disfigurement which is death itself. 

Grief was overwhelmed in terror. 

To this day I do not know what they mean when they call dead bodies beautiful. 

The ugliest man alive is an angel of beauty compared with the loveliest of the dead. 

Against all the subsequent paraphernalia of coffin, flowers, hearse, and funeral I reacted with horror. 

I even lectured one of my aunts on the absurdity of mourning clothes in a style which would have seemed to most adults both heartless and precocious; but this was our dear Aunt Annie, my maternal uncle’s Canadian wife, a woman almost as sensible and sunny as my mother herself. 

To my hatred for what I already felt to be all the fuss and flummery of the funeral I may perhaps trace something in me which I now recognise as a defect but which I have never fully overcome - a distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to The Collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality. 

My mother’s death was the occasion of what some (but not I) might regard as my first religious experience. 

When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been taught; that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I accordingly set myself to produce by willpower a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. 

When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle. 

The interesting thing is that my disappointment produced no results beyond itself. 

The thing hadn’t worked, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it. 

I think the truth is that the belief into which I had hypnotised myself was itself too irreligious for its failure to cause any religious revolution. 

I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. 

He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Saviour nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply - well, go away. 

It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contact which I solicited should have any consequences beyond restoring the status quo. I imagine that a ‘faith’ of this kind is often generated in children and that its disappointment is of no religious importance; just as the things believed in, if they could happen and be only as the child pictures them, would be of no religious importance either. With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.

BIRTHRIGHT

Father? If you can hear me, I failed. 

I failed you, I failed myself, and...

And all of Humanity. 

I traded My Birthright for a Life of Submission in a World That’s Now Ruled by Your Enemies. 

There's nobody left to help them now... The People of The World... not since I... 

!!! FATHER !!!

“Disguised as Esau, Jacob entered Isaac’s room. Surprised that Esau was back so soon, Isaac asked how it could be that the hunt went so quickly. Jacob responded, “Because the LORD your God brought it to me.” Rashi, on Genesis 27:21 says Isaac’s suspicions were aroused even more, because Esau never used the personal name of God. Isaac demanded that Jacob come close so he could feel him, but the goatskins felt just like Esau’s hairy skin. Confused, Isaac exclaimed, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau!” Genesis 27:22. Still trying to get at the truth, Isaac asked him directly, “Art thou my very son Esau?” and Jacob answered simply, “I am.” Isaac proceeded to eat the food and to drink the wine that Jacob gave him, and then told him to come close and kiss him. As Jacob kissed his father, Isaac smelled the clothes which belonged to Esau and finally accepted that the person in front of him was Esau. 

Isaac then blessed Jacob with the blessing that was meant for Esau. Genesis 27:28–29 states Isaac’s blessing: “Therefore God give thee of the dew of heavens, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: Let people serve thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.”

Jacob had scarcely left the room when Esau returned from the hunt to prepare his game and receive the blessing. The realization that he had been deceived shocked Isaac, yet he acknowledged that Jacob had received the blessings by adding, “Indeed, he will be [or remain] blessed!” (27:33).

Esau was heartbroken by the deception and begged for his own blessing. Having made Jacob a ruler over his brothers, Isaac could only promise, “By your sword you shall live, but your brother you shall serve; yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck” (27:39–40).

Although Esau sold Jacob his own birthright, which was his blessing, for “red pottage,” Esau still hated Jacob for receiving his blessing that their father Isaac unknowingly had given to him. He vowed to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac died. When Rebecca heard about his murderous intentions, she ordered Jacob to travel to her brother Laban’s house in Haran, until Esau’s anger subsided. She convinced Isaac to send Jacob away by telling him that she despaired of his marrying a local girl from the idol-worshipping families of Canaan (as Esau had done). After Isaac sent Jacob away to find a wife, Esau realized his own Canaanite wives were evil in his father’s eyes and so he took a daughter of Isaac’s half-brother, Ishmael, as another wife.

“As Isaac aged, he became blind and was uncertain when he would die, so he decided to bestow Esau’s birthright upon him. He requested that Esau go out to the fields with his weapons (quiver and bow) to kill some venison. Isaac then requested that Esau make “savory meat” for him out of the venison, according to the way he enjoyed it the most, so that he could eat it and bless Esau.

Rebecca overheard this conversation. It is suggested that she realized prophetically that Isaac’s blessings would go to Jacob, since she was told before the twins’ birth that the older son would serve the younger.11 Rebecca blessed Jacob and she quickly ordered Jacob to bring her two kid goats from their flock so that he could take Esau’s place in serving Isaac and receiving his blessing. Jacob protested that his father would recognize their deception since Esau was hairy and he himself was smooth-skinned. He feared his father would curse him as soon as he felt him, but Rebecca offered to take the curse herself, then insisted that Jacob obey her.12 Jacob did as his mother instructed and, when he returned with the kids, Rebekah made the savory meat that Isaac loved. Before she sent Jacob to his father, she dressed him in Esau’s garments and laid goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.”

“In Genesis, Esau returned to his brother, Jacob, being famished from the fields. He begged his twin brother to give him some “red pottage” (paralleling his nickname, Hebrew: אדום‎ (adom, meaning “red”). Jacob offered to give Esau a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright (the right to be recognized as firstborn) and Esau agreed.

The birthright (bekorah) has to do with both position and inheritance. By birthright, the firstborn son inherited the leadership of the family and the judicial authority of his father. Deuteronomy 21:17 states that he was also entitled to a double portion of the paternal inheritance.

Esau acts impulsively. As he did not value his birthright over a bowl of lentil stew, by his actions, Esau demonstrates that he does not deserve to be the one who continues Abraham’s responsibilities and rewards under God’s covenant, since he does not have the steady, thoughtful qualities which are required.

Jacob shows his willingness as well as his greater intelligence and forethought. What he does is not quite •honorable•, though •not illegal•. The birthright benefit that he gains is at least partially valid, although he is insecure enough about it to conspire later with his mother to deceive his father so as to gain the blessing for the first-born as well.”

“Later, Esau marries two wives, both Hittite women, that is, locals, in violation of Abraham’s (and God’s) injunction not to take wives from among the Canaanite population. Again, one gets the sense of a headstrong person who acts impulsively, without sufficient thought (Genesis 26:34–35). His marriage is described as a vexation to both Rebekah and Isaac. Even his father, who has strong affection for him, is hurt by his act. According to Daniel J. Elazar this action alone forever rules out Esau as the bearer of patriarchal continuity. Esau could have overcome the sale of his birthright; Isaac was still prepared to give him the blessing due the firstborn. But acquiring foreign wives meant the detachment of his children from the Abrahamic line. Despite the deception on the part of Jacob and his mother to gain Isaac’s patriarchal blessing, Jacob’s vocation as Isaac’s legitimate heir in the continued founding of the Jewish people is reaffirmed. Elazar suggests that the Bible indicates that a bright, calculating person who, at times, is less than honest, is preferable as a founder over a bluff, impulsive one who cannot make discriminating choices.”

It is a Massively Complex Quantum Simulation

[Holosuite corridor]

(Rom and Eddington take of a panel to get at the workings.) 

ROM: 

I've had to make a few modifications 

to this holosuite over the years. 

EDDINGTON: 

A few? It's like a junkyard in here. 

ROM: 

My Brother won't let me buy new components so I've had to scavenge for what I need. 

QUARK: 

I'm barely breaking even on the holosuites as it is. 

If I had to buy new equipment every time there was a glitch. 

EDDINGTON: 

Where's the core memory interface? 

ROM: 

Oh it's right behind the spatula. 

EDDINGTON: 

The spatula? 

ROM: 

It's made of a copper-ytterbium composite, the perfect plasma conductor. 

(Eddington scans the innards with a tricorder.) 

EDDINGTON: 

I've found them. All five of their 

physical patterns are in here 

and they're stable. 

ODO: 

Why here? 

EDDINGTON: 

The HoloSuite is specifically designed to store 

highly complex energy patterns. 

The Computer's processing 

their physical patterns as if 

they were HoloSuite characters. 

Trouble is, I'm not reading 

any neural energy. 

ROM: 

Neural energy has to be stored at the quantum level. 

The HoloSuite can't handle that. 

ODO: 

So if their physical bodies are stored 

here, where are their brain patterns? 

QUARK: 

Everywhere else. 

Their brain patterns are so large that they're taking up 

every bit of computer memory on the station. 

Replicator memory, weapons, life supports. 

ODO: 

He may be right. 

So what do we do about it? 

How do we get them back?

The Art of Dying Well : The Way of The Samurai

Negligence is an extreme thing.

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. 

When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. 

It is not particularly difficult. 

Be determined and advance. 

To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. 

When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.

We all want to live. 

And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. 

But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. 

This is a thin dangerous line.

To die without gaming one’s aim is a dog’s death and fanaticism. 

But there is no shame in this. 

This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. 

If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he pains freedom in The Way. 

His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.

A man is a good retainer to the extent that he earnestly places importance in his master. 

This is the highest sort of retainer. 

If one is born into a prominent family that goes back for generations, it is sufficient to deeply consider the matter of obligation to one’s ancestors, to lay down one’s body and mind, and to earnestly esteem one’s master. 

It is further good fortune if, more than this, one has wisdom and talent and can use them appropriately. 

But even a person who is good for nothing and exceedingly clumsy will be a reliable retainer if only he has the determination to think earnestly of his master. 

Having only wisdom and talent is the lowest tier of usefulness.

LION

Discovery is quite possible. 

Our Blue Fairy does exist in one place, and one place only, 

At The End of The World. 

Where The Lions Weep. 

Here is The Place Dreams are Born.

BRAIN

“We Think too much, and Feel too little”

Charlie Chaplain

“In the morning sunshine, in the evening twilight, a small Bear travels through a Forest. 

Why did we follow him when we were so much younger? 

He is, after all, only a Bear of Little Brain. But is Brain all that important? 

Is it really Brain that takes us where we need to go? 

Or is it all too often Brain that sends us off in the wrong direction, following the echo of the wind in the treetops, which we think is real, rather than listening to the voice within us that tells us which way to turn? 

A Brain can do all kinds of things, but the things that it can do are not the most important things. 

Abstract cleverness of mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, The Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. 

The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and to learn to value wisdom and contentment. 

These are the things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. 

They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. 

If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it would somehow be possible for us to do so. 

The Masters of Life know the Way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond Cleverness and knows beyond Knowledge. 

That voice is not just the power and property of a few, but has been given to everyone. 

Those who pay attention to it are too often treated as exceptions to a rule, rather than as examples of the rule in operation, a rule that can apply to anyone who makes use of it. 

Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. 

For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. 

Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. 

But that accomplishes nothing. 

If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. 

As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through The Forest.”

NOCEBO

You've heard of 

The Placebo Effect.

But are you aware of 

The Nocebo Effect?

 

In which the human body has a negative physical reaction to a suggested harm.

This will make you vomit.

This will make you vomit.

This will make you vomit.

Your mind has The Power to Create its own physical reality.

This will make you vomit.

[VOMITING]

[CHEERING IN DISTANCE.]

Why do we yawn when we see others yawn? 

Throughout history, there have been incidents.

The Dancing Plague of 1518 

The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic.

The Hindu Milk Miracle.

Psychologists call it a 

Conversion Disorder

In that The Body converts a mental stress to a set of physical symptoms.

In this case, a tic, or spasm.

And, like any disorder, it can be contagious.

This kind of collective behavior is not limited to human beings.

What we know is that, in certain communities, under specific circumstances, an involuntary physical symptom developed by one person can become viral.

And spread, from person to person until the entire community is infected.

And so, my question to you is :

If The Idea of Illness can become Illness, what else about Our Reality is actually a Disorder? 

FOX

The Lion cannot defend himself against snares and The Fox cannot defend himself against Wolves. 

Therefore, it is necessary 

to be a Fox to discover the snares 

and a Lion to terrify the Wolves. 

Those who rely simply on The Lion 

do not understand what they are about. 

" The most striking thing is that there appear to be a set of confusions centring around the issue of  'Power'. 

Every discussion so far has centred on a presumption that almost all relationships in The Workplace and elsewhere are centred around The Exercise of Power. 

Knowingly or otherwise these Women have all imbibed the Foucauldian world view in which Power is The Most Significant Prism for Understanding Human Relationships. 

What is striking is not just that everyone seems to have paid lip-service to this, but that these women are focused only on one sort of Power. 

This is a sort of Power which – it is presumed – has historically been held solely by mainly Old, mainly Rich, always White Men. 

It is why the joking and berating about the behaviour of ‘Alpha Males’ goes down so well. 

There is a presumption that if the Alpha and Maleness could be squashed out of These People, in some great majestic Social-Justice blending device, then the Power squeezed out of them might be drunk up by Women Like Those in The Room Today. 

[i.e., by THEM, or Their Allies (which in-turn directly benefits and privileges THEM.)]

That it will be used to nourish, and grow, Those Who Deserve The Power More. 

Here are Deep Waters. But I suggest in my contribution that our conversations are being limited by this misunderstanding. 

Even if we concede – which we should not – that Power (rather than, say, Love) is The Most Important Force Guiding Human Affairs, why are we focusing only on one type of Power? 

There certainly are types of Power – such as rape – which Men can sometimes hold over Women. 

And there is a type of Power which some Old, typically White, Males might be able to hold over less successful people, including less successful Women. 

But there are other types of Power in This World. 

Historical Old White Man Power is not the only such source. Are there not, after all, some Powers which only Women can wield. 

‘Like what?’ Someone asks. 

Chapter XVIII :

Concerning the Way in which Princes should Keep Faith

Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. You must know there are two ways of contesting,[*] the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable. A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. 

Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. If men were entirely good this precept would not hold, but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a prince legitimate reasons to excuse this non-observance. Of this endless modern examples could be given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made void and of no effect through the faithlessness of princes; and he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.

[*] “Contesting,” i.e. “striving for mastery.” Mr Burd points out that this passage is imitated directly from Cicero’s “De Officiis": “Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim; cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum; confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore.”

But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes,[*] because he well understood this side of mankind.

[*] “Nondimanco sempre gli succederono gli inganni (ad votum).” The words “ad votum” are omitted in the Testina addition, 1550.

Alexander never did what he said, Cesare never said what he did.

Italian Proverb.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity,[*] friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to set about it.

[*] “Contrary to fidelity” or “faith,” “contro alla fede,” and “tutto fede,” “altogether faithful,” in the next paragraph. It is noteworthy that these two phrases, “contro alla fede” and “tutto fede,” were omitted in the Testina edition, which was published with the sanction of the papal authorities. It may be that the meaning attached to the word “fede” was “the faith,” i.e. the Catholic creed, and not as rendered here “fidelity” and “faithful.” Observe that the word “religione” was suffered to stand in the text of the Testina, being used to signify indifferently every shade of belief, as witness “the religion,” a phrase inevitably employed to designate the Huguenot heresy. South in his Sermon IX, p. 69, ed. 1843, comments on this passage as follows: “That great patron and Coryphaeus of this tribe, Nicolo Machiavel, laid down this for a master rule in his political scheme: ‘That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and pernicious.'”

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody; because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.

One prince[*] of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of reputation and kingdom many a time. 

[*] Ferdinand of Aragon. “When Machiavelli was writing ‘The Prince’ it would have been clearly impossible to mention Ferdinand’s name here without giving offence.” Burd’s “Il Principe,” p. 308.

 

‘Like what?’ Someone asks. 

At which point, having waded in this far it only makes sense to wade further. 

Among other types of Power that Women wield almost exclusively, the most obvious is this. 

That Women – not all Women, but many Women – have an ability that Men do not. 

• This is the ability to drive members of the opposite sex MAD. 

• To derange Them. 

• Not only to destroy Them but to make Them destroy THEMSELVES. 

It is a Type of Power which allows a Young Woman in her late teens or twenties to take a Man with Everything in The World, at the height of his achievements, torment him, make him behave like a fool and wreck His Life utterly for just a few moments of almost-NOTHING. "

EPISTASIS

.... in effect, material abundance, maximum epigenetic diversity, mass migration and population explosion during periods of historic plenty inevitably produce a retardation of Human (and all other kinds of) Evolution.

HENS

It's my job to outshine the fox in cleverness

“Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed. 

For, besides the things that have been said, the nature of peoples is variable; and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them in that persuasion. 

And thus things must be ordered in such a mode that when they no longer believe, one can make them believe by force."

— The Prince, 

Niccolò Machiavelli

The Queen :

Have you seen how the hens in

the yard peck at each other?

Each choosing the one just weaker.

Why do the ladies peck at you?

Ophelia :

I'm not noble, My Lady.

The Queen :

Did you know I was not raised at court?

My sister and I were sent as girls to a convent in France.

But even there, there were hens and they pecked.

Ophelia :

Even the nuns?

The Queen :

But I had my sister to defend me.

The Existential Pain of Living with The Consciousness of Death

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

Hi.

Oh.

You're reading.

I won't, uh -

Capt. RIOS :

Be my guest.

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

So, space turns out to be super boring.

Go figure.

Capt. RIOS :

What were you expecting? 

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

I don't know.

It's so empty.

I mean, of course, right? It's right there in the name.

"Space".

It's not like it's called 
"vast quantities of stuff".

Although, come to think of it, there are over three billion stars in our galaxy alone and ours is one of two trillion.

There are a septillion known planets, so maybe it should be called "vast quantities of stuff".

Like, why focus on the negative? 

I caught up on two years of back issues of the "Journal of Theoretical Cybernetics", including the Festschrift for Professor Kwok.

I watered your plants.

You're welcome.

I was gonna watch a holo, but weirdly, all you have on board is Klingon opera.

Capt. RIOS :

Long story.

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

I used to live with a guy who liked paper books.

I bothered him, too.

Capt. RIOS :

(resigned, closing his book)

What did he used to do about it? 

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

He was My Dad — He had to put up with it.

What's your book about? 

Capt. RIOS :

The existential pain of living with the consciousness of death, and how it defines us as human beings.

Dr. AGNES JURATI :

.....

...Well, •that's•. not a conversation killer at all.

I •totally• want to talk about the existential pain of living with the consciousness of death.

Auntie RAPHIE :

Rios! 

Capt. RIOS :

Oh, Thank God.

Are you having a good laugh now, Q? 

Does it amuse you to think of me living out the rest of my life as a dreary man in a tedious job?

Q: 

I gave you something most mortals never experience. A second chance at life. And now all you can do is COMPLAIN? 

PICARD: 

I can't live out my days as that person. That man is bereft of passion and imagination. 

That is not Who I Am. 

Q: 

Au contraire, he's the person you wanted to be. One who was less arrogant, and undisciplined as a youth. One who was less like me. 

The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. 

That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realised how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. 

So his life never came into focus. 

He drifted for much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. 

He never lead the away team on Milika Three to save the ambassador, 
or take charge of the Stargazer's Bridge when its Captain was killed. 
And no one ever offered him a command. 

He learned to play it safe. 

And he never, EVER got noticed by ANYONE. 

PICARD: 

You're right, Q. 

You gave me the chance to change and I took the opportunity. 

But I admit now, it was a mistake. 

Q: 

Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc? 

PICARD: 

Give me a chance to put things back the way they were before. 

Q: 

Before you died in Sickbay. 
Is that what you want? 

PICARD: 

I would rather die as the man I WAS than live the life I just saw.