Impressions from Canada

Hello Everyone,

Tired from writing individual replies to all my fans, I have decided to make a strategic low-effort collective response.
So what's it like in Canada?
In Canada there are a lot of trees, and also a lot of Starbucks's.
Since I don't have a camera, here are some representative pictures from the net:






Tree:




StarBucks


















I currently live in the neighbourhood where all trees are, but occasionally take the skytrain to the
neighbourhood where all the starbucks's are:





















However, I currently have a problem at the place where I'm staying, as the couple I'm staying with are not giving me any drawer space in the bathroom, claiming they need all the bathroom drawers to store toilet paper.
I also suspect they are trying to kill me.


Anyway, I am soon moving to another neighbourhood with few trees and only one starbucks. We'll see how that goes...

שיר מחאה

שותה קפה, הולך לשירותים.
ככה כל היום, ככה כל החיים.

אוכל גרנולה, אוכל את הלב.

רגע מנשנש, רגע מתאהב.

מורח חומוס, מורחים אותי.
איך בתוך פיתה מעכו את נשמתי.

Lessons from a Phd

Doing anything reasonably well takes an unreasonable amount of time and effort.

Another Vipasssana

Just came back from my fouth Vipassana Course (see www.dhamma.org, hebrew-www.il.dhamma.org)

One thing that has become clearer in my mind after this course is - there
are no shortcuts for relief that bypass making a change in the deep level of the mind.
Phrased more positively, the most effective way to make a change for good in day to day life
is making a change in the depth of the mind.

To elaborate where I'm coming from: In the course you expereince sometimes very intense physical sensations and emotions, for me at least, a lot of the time these are unpleasent intense physical sensations and emotions.
When this happened, the following thought pattern would often occur to me- I have no aspiration of becoming some spiritual master or bhudist monk- why not just live my normal life quietley without getting into this deep intense unpleasent stuff?
Very quickly at the end of the course and coming back, still having the sensitivity from the course, it becomes clearer that this route is an illusion. I am telling a story to a group of people, seeing they are focused on what I am saying, I notice how much pressure I feel to keep their attention, and how much I am worried that I will lose it. Also, I am late somewhere and notice what intense Pressure I feel that clouds my judgement, effects the way I drive.
The point is this: even in everyday life when nothing extreme has happened in external reality the deep part of the mind, the so-called subconcious or unconcious mind, has intense expereinces-we are simply not aware of it happening.

You could say, well if I'm not aware of it what do I care? But these intense expereinces cause intense reactions, and a reaction is almost always, if not always, negative. These inner reactions add up and eventually manifest externally in unpleasent feelings and situations, that you will feel.
What I wrote so far may seem very pessimistic\depressing, so I'd like to stress that when I write stuff like this it also comes with a great optimism and hope. Hope becasuse I feel that with this meditation I am really dealing with the root inner problems that effect my life negatively. Thus, there is hope for real change, real relief, not just temporary relief that comes from dealing with symptoms.

Deleting a file- a simple example of how bad windows vista is

I'd like to share the vista expereince I had last night that has made
me decide to check out linux. A simple example- no 'incompatible drivers' or stuff like that.
I go to this website where there's a link to an mpeg (video) file I want to see. I click on it to open it- the options I get are save or cancel- no open-for some reason Windows media player can't open it online. I save it, then play it with windows media player-it's fine. Now I try to delete the file-windows says the file is corrupted and can't be deleted!(Because Vista always wants the bad files to stay on the compuer?)
I close the media player thinking maybe that's confusing the system, try to delete again.. same answer, try to cut and copy into the recycle bin.. again same answer!
I think OK.. let's change the file to a text file-maybe then it can be deleted. The file name does not contain file type , I go into the properties of the file- file type cannot be changed! I think OK let's use the 'open with' option and open it with notepad anyway and simply select all the data and delete it.. Vista says I can only open it with notepad by making notepad the default program for mpeg files!
I go to the main menu where I expect to see notepad as a shortcut- as I just used it-it's not there- After the menus open up I find notepad and open it
(though I understand there's a nice method in Vista of just typing the first letters of 'notepad'-didn't work for me in any case)
I open the file, select all and delete and save.
Now I try to delete the empty file now containing 0 bytes!.. The file is still on my computer.

Boredom and Panic

It sometimes seems I live my life alternating between bordeom and panic. I
have this routine-that's not that interesting-and not that important-nothing tragic will
happen if I stop doing my job- On the one hand since it's academia stopping to work is ofcouse no reason to fire someone or not paying him, and on the other hand noone will suffer as a result of me stopping to work-as I work so slowly that it would not make a distinguishable difference to anyone. Still, If anything happens that disrupts the routine-like now- a car problem that's detaining me from going to the library-cause I simply cannot do math at home-it seems unnautral, then I feel how attached I am to the routine when the panic starts to spread:
'Oh my god! I won't have 8 hours to sit in the library today and read another page and a half of a cryptic paper!'

The death of desire

,לפני שבאתי לכאן

נגזר עלי לאהוב כמו מלאך
.בלי לגעת, רק לעודד מהצד

וקול מהעבר לוחש לי, מי שרוצה להגיע רחוק
.צריך לוותר, ואתה כבר חתמת על ההסכם

,אחרי שהגעתי לכאן

התפתתי אלפי פעמים

.אל תוך השריפה שממנה ניסיתי לברוח
רק לגלות שוב ושוב, שעבורי, רק אפר נשאר
.בלי עונג, בלי חום

וקול מהעבר לוחש לי, מי שרוצה להגיע רחוק
.צריך לוותר, ואתה כבר חתמת על ההסכם

,לפני שאלך מכאן

.אקבור את עצמי סופית
,כי כבר אי אפשר להתכחש

.שלשם כך באתי לכאן

לעצור את הטירוף

מתישהו, צריך לעצור את הטירוף.
להרגיש את הכאב, במקום להעביר אותו לשאר העולם.

Striking Commercial

Hey You!,

Can't decide whether to take a long vacation, work a bit more and save more money, or even work harder to get a raise?

What if you could take a fully financed vacation for an unlimited period of time and get a raise when you finally decide to get back to work?

Sound too good to be true? Not at all! We introduce.... STRIKING!!

Originally intended for low class workers working under inhumane conditions, striking is now available to everybody!

Before you say 'no, striking will never work for me', answer these questions:

Do you have control over any important resource such as electricity, water or life saving medicine?

Are there thousands, or better yet, hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected in someway if you stop doing your job?

Will temporary cessation of your livelihood result in discomfort\irritation\injury\disease or death of many pepole?

Then you have all it takes to be a striker!

Have you ever asked yourself 'why is my salary signifcantly smaller than the national budget?'. Never seemed fair, did it? Well, striking is just the solution for you! In fact, the national budget is the only limit to what you can earn through striking!

STRIKING IS POWER! Tired of being just another average guy? Want to make a difference? With striking you can easily disrupt the lives of thousands of people!

Order now and you'll get the CONTINENT BOOSTER! Destroy entire continents with amplified strike power!

Not convinced? Listen to these testominals:

Ex-convict: "I used to rob stores and banks. It was nice for a while, but I'd get arrested and put in jail every now and then, and I had alot of stress at work in general. I always felt it could be better if I could do things by the book. Now with striking, I just take money from people for some alleged service they want to recieve, and then I just go on stike! and the best thing is that it's 100% legal!"

Government employee: "The best thing about striking is that it's simple! You just go through your regular schedule, and take out the things that could potentially help someone.'

Start your strike today, while national resources last!