Attended: Peacekeeping, Statebuilding and the Private Sector in Haiti
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Sunday, April 25 /
Panel Moderated by Elisabeth Lindenmayer
Epicurus’ Four-Step Program on life
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Step One: Do not believe in God, or in the gods. They most likely do not exist, and even if they did, it is preposterous to believe that they could possibly care, that they are watching over you and keeping a strict accounting of your behavior.
Step Two: Don’t worry about death. Death, be assured, is oblivion, a condition not different from your life before you were born: an utter blank. Forget about heaven, forget about hell; neither exists — after death there is only the Big O (oblivion) and the Big N (nullity), nothing, nada, zilch. Get your mind off it.
Step Three: Forget, as best you are able, about pain. Pain is either brief, and will therefore soon enough diminish and be gone; or, if it doesn’t disappear, if it lingers and intensifies, death cannot be far away, and so your worries are over here, too, for death, as we know, also presents no problem, being nothing more than eternal dark, dreamless sleep.
Step Four: Do not waste your time attempting to acquire exactious luxuries, whose pleasures are sure to be incommensurate with the effort required to gain them. From this it follows that ambition generally — for things, money, fame, power — should also be foresworn. The effort required to obtain them is too great; the game isn’t worth the candle.
To summarize, then: forget about God, death, pain and acquisition, and your worries are over.
From an excellent article by Joseph Epstein
Step Two: Don’t worry about death. Death, be assured, is oblivion, a condition not different from your life before you were born: an utter blank. Forget about heaven, forget about hell; neither exists — after death there is only the Big O (oblivion) and the Big N (nullity), nothing, nada, zilch. Get your mind off it.
Step Three: Forget, as best you are able, about pain. Pain is either brief, and will therefore soon enough diminish and be gone; or, if it doesn’t disappear, if it lingers and intensifies, death cannot be far away, and so your worries are over here, too, for death, as we know, also presents no problem, being nothing more than eternal dark, dreamless sleep.
Step Four: Do not waste your time attempting to acquire exactious luxuries, whose pleasures are sure to be incommensurate with the effort required to gain them. From this it follows that ambition generally — for things, money, fame, power — should also be foresworn. The effort required to obtain them is too great; the game isn’t worth the candle.
To summarize, then: forget about God, death, pain and acquisition, and your worries are over.
From an excellent article by Joseph Epstein
Attended: New York Philharmonic
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Saturday, April 17 /
Riccardo Muti Conducts Mozart ( Symphony No. 34) & Schubert (Symphony No. 4, Tragic). And Carter Brey on the CelloLincoln Center, 16th April 2010
Attended: Congo event
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Thursday, April 8 /
Raise Hope for Congo: Panel Discussion
Raise Hope for Congo, a panel discussion about the current situation in DRC took place this Wednesday, April 7. The discussion addressed the scourge of conflict minerals and the epidemic of rape and sexual violence in the region. With history and background of the Congo, the current political situation, the UN Peacekeeping Mission, and what policy initiatives are currently in place, the panelists discussed their own personal experiences on the ground, and how to get involved in putting an end to the conflict.
Panelists:
- John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project
- Major General (ret.) Patrick Cammaert, Former Division Commander of MONUC
- Roger Luhiri, former fistula doctor at Panzi Hospital in DRC and a 2008 Human Rights Advocate with ISHR
- Lisa Jackson, director of the film The Greatest Silence about rape in the Congo
- Anneke Van Woudenberg, Senior Researcher on the DRC, Human Rights Watch
Location: Amsterdam Ave,New York,United States
