Why Is the Rook so Short?

According to Ubuntu philosophy, which has its origins in ancient Africa, a newborn baby is not a person. People are born without ‘ena’, or selfhood, and instead must acquire it through interactions and experiences over time. So the ‘self’/‘other’ distinction that’s axiomatic in Western philosophy is much blurrier in Ubuntu thought. As the Kenyan-born philosopher John Mbiti put it in African Religions and Philosophy (1975): ‘I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.’

Down the snooker club I used to go down there was a very good but cocky player. He was a regional champion. Well dressed, quite wealthy and popular with the ladies. Many people gradually got fed up with his arrogance... 

One evening the 'champ' as he called himself had effortlessly beaten two of the club's strongest players. He had his latest dolly bird in tow and his attitude was getting to people more than usual. Then something unusual occurred... 

An old tramp had somehow got into the club. He smelled terrible. He wore unwashed tatty clothes. Out of his old coat he took an old battered snooker cue. The whole club looked on as the stranger invited the champ to play, motioning the 'champ' with his cue like some forgotten urban wizard. 

Whether the 'champ' had a sense of foreboding is hard to say. He approached the table with a quiet disposition. Club members watched intently. Would the insufferable local champion be beaten by the mysterious stranger?

The game was over in five minutes. The tramp 'wizard' was frigging useless.

I'm here!!!

Today I watched The Shawshank Redemption. Beautiful. 

There's this scene. In Shawshank prison, Andy illegaly puts some opera music...

"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."

- Red

The voice of Morgan Freeman gave that line such power.

A pessimist is an optimist with experience..........don't remember

"You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." ― Christopher Columbus

"Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement." ― Ronald Reagan

Why should I worry about dying.It's not going to happen in my lifetime.

Raymond Smullyan

"There was a knock on our dressing-room door. Our manager shouted, 'Keith! Ron! The Police are here!' Oh, man, we panicked, flushed everything down the john. Then the door opened and it was Stewart Copeland and Sting." ― Keith Richards

(Spike Milligan's Gravestone)