Happy Nations Have No History - Albert Camus

“What I'm sure of is that you can't be happy without money. That's all. I don't like superficiality and I don't like romanticism. I like to be conscious. And what I've noticed is that there's a kind of spiritual snobbism in certain 'superior beings' who think that money isn't necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly.... For a man who is well born, being happy is never complicated. It's enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will for renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will for happiness. Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. That's the only problem that's ever interested me.... To have money is to have time. That's my main point. Time can be bought. Everything can be bought. To be or to become rich is to have time to be happy, if you deserve it.... Everything for happiness, against the world which surrounds us with its violence and its stupidity.... All the cruelty of our civilization can be measured by this one axiom: happy nations have no history.”
― Albert Camus, #otw #Ows #OccupyTogether. #OneRevolution #WorldRevolution #OccupyEarth


**And this is why we protest today because the #1 percent can afford all the time in the world. They can afford to lay their heads down in a dozen houses. But the #99 percent just want enough money to buy some time to breathe...and be able to enjoy what time they have**

Truth and Falsehood -- Albert Camus

“Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”
― Albert Camus


**In Camus' absurd view of the world, this scenario, while absurd to the 'normal' man, is normal to the 'absurd' man.**

Friendship Is Less Simple - Albert Camus

“Friendship is less simple. It is long and hard to obtain but when one has it there's no getting rid of it; one simply has to cope with it. Don't think for a minute that your friends will telephone you every evening, as they ought to, in order to find out if this doesn't happen to be the evening when you are deciding to commit suicide, or simply whether you don't need company, whether you are not in the mood to go out. No, don't worry, they'll ring up the evening you are not alone, when life is beautiful. As for suicide, they would be more likely to push you to it, by virtue of what you owe to yourself, according to them. May heaven protect us, cher Monsieur, from being set upon a pedestal by our friends!”
― Albert Camus, The Fall


(As I have been tweeting tonight exclusively upon the works of #AlbertCamus, the most preeminent philosopher of his time and a loving student of the human condition in all it's grandeur and despair, I wish to continue to inspire you with some of his longer quotations. Camus was a quiet and private man. His father was absent and his mother was deaf and mute. Camus grew up in a spartan home in almost complete silence. Nothing but he, his mother and, as he liked to say, "Nothing but the sky, the wind, the earth and the water." Almost a footnote in philosophical history, he, the father of the philosophy that all of life is absurd, would rejoice at the turn the world has recently taken. Many are dismissive of him or are completely unaware of the magnitude and influence of his work and how current it is to the spirit of revolt and revolution of ideas in America and other countries around the globe today. Camus would be proud. Enjoy the rest of the evening with me tonight from time to time).

The Final Punishment

"I came upon a child of god. He was walking upon the road. We are star dust, billion year old carbon. We are golden and we have to get ourselves back to the garden. Can I walk to beside you? I feel to be a cog in something turning. Life is for learning." Joni Mitchell, 'Woodstock' (excerpts)

On Twitter, I am a big, fat, Greek Atheist best known for my famous rants. I wasn't always this way. I used to be a meek, obedient, good Greek girl who went to Greek School & the Greek Orthodox Church every Sunday. Yup. The little Medusa...


People have been asking me why I am an atheist. This one is for you @Cin_Le2! You asked...
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The Short Version

My dad caught me when I was 11 or 12 with one of his gold coins in my room. I had it to show my friends. This was back in 1972ish. He didn't believe me. Everything was taken out of my room except for a bed, desk, one chair & a dresser. This gulag type of existence lasted for six weeks. (Remember. I was a felon at 11). All I had left was the Greek cross my YiaYia (grandmother) had given to me. It comfortably hung by my bed, reassuring me that I would see her again in the summer, the happiest times of MY life. The cross was given to her by her grandmother. It would be well over 100 years old now. If I still had it. 

But I don't. 

Because, after I got done packing up all my things -- including my 600 volume library of which I was so proud -- and had had dinner, and I was in bed waiting for my father... He came in with a an angry, red face. Huffing and puffing with strained breathing like he was restraining himself from attacking me, he took the hammer in his hand and pulled out the nail that held that cross to the wall, and then looked at me and said:


"YOU, you little shit are a thief. And thieves don't deserve GOD." 


With that, he turned around and left. We never spoke of the cross again. 
We never went to church again. My Grandmother could not convince him to return the cross to me as that was her wish.


I received my library back after 6 weeks and began reading all sorts of philosophers, wise men and women...anything and everything to decern a "GOD" and did not. I spent DECADES. I have made my decision based on what I have learned & can prove. What I cannot prove, frankly, I don't worry about proving whether or not there is a God. I got a life here to live. He can fuck with me later. I just don't have the time for him now. 


Kind of like he, in his omnipresence, didn't have time to intercede into the mind of a mad man and save one of the most innocent of his beloved flock...a child. Me. 


I have not spoken to my father for over 20 years. He has Bipolar disorder 3. Untreated. He is 83. He is a lunatic. 


So, to Christians, I don't expect you to understand why or how I became an atheist. But you have a better insight into my personal choice. Barring this, you'll have to buy the book. I took many paths to 'spiritual' enlightenment, or whatever we're calling it today: Dogma d'jour! I respect your right to believe. Please try and use my story to understand how SOME people may have 'become' non-theists.


We all have to live on the planet together in peace. Whatever that is.

Our Common Ills

#Our Common Ills, World Population & Politics:

*The most prescient problem in our world, on our planet, is an over abundance of human beings and a rapid depletion of resources. There is, a mass migration of immigrants from third world countries into industrialized nations. Because it seems that those nations have an abundance of resources. And certainly, recently, this has been proven to be true.

In America, for instance, it has been said that 95% of the entire country is in the hands of the wealthiest 1%. How can this be? That is easy: Politics. But, when the 'immigrant' arrives looking for abundance, there is none. They become angry and want to change the system. They learn the laws of their new land and change them. This is democracy at it's core. And we call these people criminals. Illegals. How can a person be illegal.

It should be illegal NOT to feed the hungry, no matter how they got that way.  "How can our common ills be SHAMEFUL to us?" said Euripides. He cries further, "If any man should fall, support him with your HANDS." These are just not quaint ancient Greek quotes from obscurity. They ring true today.

"The human lot is a HARSH one without being made STILL harsher by one's 'friends," said R. E. Meagher (fr. The Essential Camus). And yet we kick them when they are down and they keep coming. And they will keep coming  because industrialized nations pillaged their countries throughout history. For centuries. So now they turn to the most 'powerful' countries for aid: To America, to Russia, to Europe, naming but a few.

Perhaps it is time for a world government. All I know is that the city or country which forgets how to care for their 'strangers,' has forgotten to care for itself. And now watch it all burn. Because we have forgotten to care for each other. And it is long past the time necessary to set it all right again. What do we do now? 

Put down your weapons and pick up a plow.

Follow this link: 

World population clock w/ diagrams: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/