Welcome to Pizzaonia! Reflections from a different perspective --- Diverti Mento, John Frank Giovanni, Frank John Franco, Vera V. Veronica and all of the Pizza digogo DiVinci family invite you to join us - We discuss and share ideas that are relevant to our new emerging world. http://giovanniandfranco.com A division of the Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network
When you look back on a life lived over several years it becomes harder and harder to keep a straight face. Not withstanding life’s joyful and tragic moments, it is very difficult to miss the absurdity of it all.
Most absurd of all are those among us who really believe they had a lot to do with their good fortune. When one looks back on the gifts we are given that ironically seem to show up when we need them most, you have to wonder how all of this works.
You don’t want to ask too many questions here. I would simply be grateful for being around. And maybe that is the best answer of all—gratitude.
If karma exists, gratitude has to be its mother. With gratitude, we are able to say thank you more often. We tend to be more generous and as a result increase our willingness to do good and to be more charitable.
So the next time you are patting yourself on the back for the blessings bestowed upon you – stop for a minute and say, thank you. And then go do something nice for someone…….
It seems we live in a world that demands we keep score. From kindergarten children to senior citizens, someone is watching and keeping a record. Nothing is left to spontaneity or chance.
Everything is to be accounted for and you can be sure you will be told by someone the results of the scorecard.
Since there is very little we can do to change this, let’s remember one thing. If you insist on keeping score make sure you count points foras well as points against.
There is a growing tendency to use the scoreboard as a weapon, both pro and con. Enough! Just remember to be fair. After all, someone is also scoring how you keep score.
We live in a time when the concept of faith has lost its luster. Faith by today’s rules is consigned often to the unsophisticated. As a result, when someone declares a belief or activity as “a matter of faith” it is immediately suspect.
This presents a major problem. If faith is suspect, than most of our assumptions must also be suspect since so much of what we believe is based on faith-like assumptions.
A major assumption we make everyday is the world, as we know it, will continue to exist. This is an assumption based on faith.
The odds may be with us, but nonetheless, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next minute and must assume we will still be here.
This obvious assumption should give us pause. Our arrogant supposition regarding the stability of life keeps us from changing many things that need changing.
The notion there will be a tomorrow may give us hope, but how many important things never get done because this assumed hope is part of our belief system. This implicit hope is the “mother” of all procrastination.
Be careful – the next time you find faith suspect - make sure you are not living most of your life based on assumptions rooted in faith.
Somewhere in history the leaders of organized, religion got stuck in a time warp. Fortunately, many believers refused to get stuck with them. It is hard to grasp how a dynamic living force as God - has been confined to a single concept or event in time by so many of the so-called faithful.
God created a dynamic living universe, but somehow in the consciousness of so many of His believers is a thought system rooted in concrete. And then to add to this insult, they believe this immutability is sacred.
These words are a sacrilege to many, but equally sacrileges to others is not understanding and grasping the significance of a “Cosmic God"*. If we are to give glory to God as deserved, we have to understand the concept of a living galactic God who is part of all evolving life, including our growth as individual believers.
The difference between those who hold to some immutable, unchanging truth as compared to those who see the ‘sacred’ in the evolving consciousness of the universe depends of whether you trust in the people as the true “keepers of the flame” or believe human nature, by its very nature, cannot be trusted with ongoing revelation.
Some explanation is necessary here. At the turn of the last century we began to see the developing belief in a God more consistent with what humans were discovering about their universe. Many will charge that because many so-called “enlightened humans and their science chose to believe theories not consistent with “old time religion,” they need to be even more adamant about being true to their non-evolving, original beliefs.
What is troubling is how we can see things so differently. From my perspective our original beliefs clearly show us that we are an evolving species. In addition, we have the evidence of the Universe itself. If it is not evolving all the time what else is it? Is it possible that the God who created us, also created an environment separate and alien to us?
Somewhere in the past, with our increasing awareness, it was imprinted into the mind sets of many that our spirituality and the world we live in are diametrically opposed to each other. The consequence of this was to separate us from our environment and make us strangers in our own homes.
This is what we need to correct if we are to achieve the transcendence our faith in God, was meant to achieve.
Science made the universe God; religion made humans God, now it is time to see both entities, not as separate, but as the same God, united in glorious Transcendence.
(C)copyright* - Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, curator - Pizzaonian Space and Aeronautical Administration PSAA
IMAGE: THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS BELIEVED TO BE THE SECOND IMAGE OF A BLACK HOLE EVER RECORDED - from the Mozzarella space probe, Pizzaonian Space and Aeronautical Administration
Today the Pizzaonian Seminar for the Advancement of Real Science published what is believed to be the second image of a black hole ever recorded from space.
Professor Gogi Forbrokei released the second photo today with the statement that the outstanding detail and resolution of the image erases all doubt that this is black hole. Professor Forbrokei is expected to release more information about the continued, amazing success of the Mozzarella space probe later this week
Reported by Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network, Diverti Mento, director
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THE FIRST PIZZAONIAN SPACE PROBE PHOTOGRAPH OF A BLACK HOLE WAS RECORDED APRIL 2012 - from the Mozzarella space probe, Pizzaonian Space and Aeronautical Administration. The two photographs, then and now, are virtually identical
With age comes some sentimentality – kept in control - this can be good. Remembering the past and holding it dear can help define the future. The trick is to steer in the direction of the future while still enjoying the present.
You read so much about the importance of “now.” This sounds good, but to not understand the “now” has its grounding in the past and the hope of a future, is to fail to grasp the emotional and philosophical base that each of us uses to live in the "now.”
The past has molded us and defines how we view our lives. For the person born to introspection, the past can be a great comfort. It helps us to understand and relate to our experience. This helps shape how we react in the present. Understanding this is good and offers us some reassurance.
What about our bad experiences of the past? We have all had some, others more than their share. Nonetheless, if we have managed to view our lives as meaningful, these bad experiences helped to make us who we are. It is the grain of sand in the oyster that makes the pearl.
By all means, live in the present. However, never forget how important our awareness of the past and future are in defining how we view the present.
Defining your reality - For those still seeking their path
As the years go by you realize so much of your life is shaped by accidental events that require you to react to them, the notion of planning and shaping your life into something meaningful can become a non sequitur.
Cynical, pehaps, but if this is true, then what is left? The answer to the question is for a lifetime to reveal.
We hear so much of goals and how important they are to finding success.
Secretly, I sometimes think that much of our stress is grounded in chasing goals for which we have neither the inclination nor the aptitude. Many of us reject our natural aptitudes and the talents we have. We insist on becoming something else. Why? The question has perplexed me for years.
I suspect it starts with the early impressions we are all left with from our childhood. The desire for acceptance teaches most of us early on that the affirmation we need comes from fulfilling the wishes and needs of the prominent adults in our lives.
How your changing needs for affirmation affects who and what you are.
As we grow older the need for affirmation transfers to the adult institutions in our lives: our cultural values, our workplace, our church, our select group of friends - all influenced by the imprint within us that was shaped by the environment of our early years. By this time, the need for survival takes hold and our mental imprints are too grounded to change into what should have been.
Of course, all of this creates the filter by which we judge and view all the feelings and activities we experience in our journey to the end. This filter shapes our particular prejudices and perspectives, both individually and collectively. Primarily, because it is the subtle, but always present static that plays in the background of our thinking process.
Our need for affirmation numbs us into submission and deludes us with its virtuous resignation.
We grow so use to its presence, we ignore its power over us. However, we do so at our own peril.
There is a noted exception to this model. There are a few among us who see correctly and know what they do to survive is essentially meaningless to them other than providing a means to an end. They do not embellish, or try to justify their activities in “service for society” or other grandiose terms. They do what is necessary because it is necessary.
Simply meeting their responsibilities is a worthy goal unto itself.
A means to an end becomes their justification, and stoic acceptance of this fact creates its own type of begrudging affirmation - though not completely free, they may be the freest among us. And that is worth a great deal.
We are asked often what is the driving philosophy of the Pizzaonian Monasteries. Many would think we would have a ready answer, but we don’t.
Here in Pizzaonia we have become wary of packaged philosophies and mission statements. They seem to become like stale bread in a very short time.
For us the reason is simple and obvious. Change is about us everywhere. In us, in our neighbors, in the very nature we exist in and share with all things.
The minute we have a philosophy the reason for bringing it into being has already begun to change.
We are all standing on quicksand and the sooner we can muster the courage to accept this fact the sooner we begin to live realistic lives.
Many challenge this notion by reminding us that our position is an invitation to chaos. We agree with our critics, but this does not change the fact.
We are stuck in a dynamic and changing culture, galaxy, and universe. All life is in flux and we are like the drops of water in the river moving with the current.
For many this is a despairing position and becomes intolerable. At first, this can be true, but it is also liberating. Facing a subjective reality has that virtue, and for Pizzaonians this is the defining concept of our existentialism.
The nature of all pizzaonian existentialist thought is to face a subjective reality and let it bring its consequences. The very uncertainty of all things is the quicksand and power of existentialism. The Pizzaonian code for accepting life revolves around this one essential fact.
Then what is the purpose of the Pizzaonian mission and its monasteries and sundry affiliations? Simply this: To evolve toward a perfect union – a familiar phase borrowed and modified from the American constitution.
However, we carry its meaning beyond its original intent. We apply its meaning to all things including our personal relationships, our everyday activity and to our national aspirations.
We use these words as the yardstick by which we measure all that we do – always uncertain, but united always in faith, not fact, that we are all evolving toward a more perfect union.
For those who need certainty and sure proof for what they believe, Pizzaonia is not your place. But, for those who seek a community where who and what you are will be allowed to exist as you find your way through this uncertain life – we are the place for you.
The uncertainty of reality eventually becomes the uncertainty of certainty.*
*A saying posted over the entranceway of our chapel.
One of the most amazing events of the past twenty-five years is how Apple created worshippers instead of customers.
Steve Jobs, for all the other things he may have been, was a marketing genius who understood how to create a digital community, and how to mold that community into a cult concept. No matter how competent his replacement(s) may be - Apple can never be the same without him.
Many will object to the word “cult” but in its broadest sense, that is what the digital Apple community is.
Jobs became the messiah of the ubiquitous information age and intuitively understood how to set Apple products apart as the symbol of the new age that was dawning. The concept of symbol is important because understanding how to create a symbol and make it a totem of a new generation is what Jobs did. This was his genius.
Though it is veiled by the material age we live in you can see the same progression of the Apple experience in many spiritual and religious experiences from the beginning of time. They have existed through the ages and come to us through mythology and religion. Understanding what Jobs accomplished is a Jungian delight.
In a time when alienation abounds and when technology eliminates the one-on-one experience, the world was waiting for a way to unite the millions of alienated people. Jobs became that symbol of unification and Apple products became the “digital bread of life” that united Apple users, not only with Jobs, but also with each other.
Organized religion eat your heart out. Can you imagine a church where millions wait in line to join and are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to become part of the experience? Again, that is what Jobs did. He was truly one of the great minds of his age.
Brother Giovanni, for the Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network
The question should occur to us: Why Photography? With so many ways to express yourself today why choose the camera as your primary tool for creative expression.
For some, the answer comes quick and easy. The camera offers the dilettante an easy tool to use for personal expression with a minimum of preparation, and with today’s digital automation, the camera is easier to use than at any other time.
No question that the camera is ubiquitous and that photography is the people’s art form. The digital camera's automation performs many of the tasks that earlier photographers would spend several months, if not years, learning to master.
Digital images fill the air we breathe. Social media creates multiple platforms for photographers to share pictures. Never before have so many images been available for us to share.
With such easy access and availability, it begs the question: Why so few creative and exciting images that stir the soul and imagination.
Everyday we are exposed to well-crafted images that are at best clichés. They serve their purpose, and I am no way suggesting they should stop being produced. These images serve a very important purpose for those that produce them.
I am concerned about the lack of bold, new creative images that show photography to be more than a recording device.
Photography is at a crossroads since technology has changed how the medium is defined. What does the future hold and what will the new photographers see as their role?
