My friend and co-worker, Mark, read my "Statue of Liberty" blog and pointed out this speach from 1966, which is about how security doesn't always come at the barrel of a gun. It is often better pursued through diplomacy and shared interests. It's a good read.

I mentioned recently that I'm reading books by Daniel Quinn. I highly recommend them. I saw The Story of B at Half Priced Books on Lane Ave for about $6 the other day.

Last night, Anna and I saw Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring at The Drexel East. Good film.

At work, we spend a lot of time talking about thinking. The other day, during a conversation about resource allocation, it occurred to me that humans don't really have much of a problem with resource allocation, at least not personally.

That is, you never have to sit and wonder, "What should I be looking at now, since I can only look at one thing at a time?" In fact before it would even occur to you to think this, you would just look at each of the things in turn. You have other senses to help cover the gaps too.

This might not be true in a catastrophic situation, like being in the middle of a riot, where far too much is going on for you to process it.

In my opinion, the same is true of human thought as well. We spend most of our time not thinking very hard. Unless you're over-worked and stressed out, (which can hardly be considered a natural state of things) you seldom say, "I cannot decide because I simply haven't had time to think about it." Or maybe you do... are you stressed out?

What I'm getting at is that we have an abundance of personal resources. Nature produces in abundance.

While I was doing dishes today, I had a thought of personal importance to me. After a minute or two on that thought, I started thinking about something else. I said, "wait a minute, that was an important thought" and tried to go back to it, but when I got there, I found that there wasn't much to think about. The thought was complete.

Then I came to my computer and picked up a book on meditation that I've been reading from. It talked a bit about the random thoughts that come up while you're meditating, "When you are practicing... do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long..."

Perhaps this is the case because of the abundance of mental resources we possess. Perhaps this is the power in the discipline of meditation, and why it is hard for beginners (like me): It gives you time to think about everything that you need to think about. If you meditate for 20 minutes a day, perhaps in a couple of months, you will have thought about everything important. Perhaps the difficulty for the beginner in clearing their mind is that they just have a certain amount of stuff to get through before it can become clear.