Peaceful Bliss Day

hello Margaret are you still here ?

reminder it wasn’t the first bliss day missed, and it won’t be the last. Fearsome hunger fuels the inkwells, collection plates and ballot boxes of our empty passageway.

We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any propositions, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of likeminded believers. — Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)



[The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller’s proclamation that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, which he called the Second Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to conclude that Daniel’s “cleansing of the sanctuary” was cleansing the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared. When Jesus did not appear by October 22, 1844, Miller and his followers were disappointed


published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members’ coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members’ beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations.

‘During his lifetime, many of his adherents believed that he was the Messiah. ‘
[The concept of the Messiah is central to Judaism, representing an anticipated savior and bringer of universal peace and justice. Expected to restore Israel and gather in the Jewish diaspora, the Messiah is often linked to the Davidic lineage as foretold in the Hebrew Bible. Over centuries, beliefs about the Messiah have shaped Jewish Life.

Since Schneerson’s death in 1994, some followers of Chabad have persisted in believing in him as the messiah. Chabad messianists either believe Schneerson will be resurrected from the dead to be revealed as the messiah, or go further and profess the belief that Schneerson never died in 1994 and is waiting to be revealed as messiah. 

[“He will soon rise!” they proclaimed. Others said, “He’s not really dead. This is just a test for our physical eyes.” Some even camped out near his gravesite, waiting for his resurrection]

T’chiyat Hameitim is a core tenet of traditional Jewish theology, referring to the revival of the dead, the physical body being reunited with the soul during the Messianic Age. The Resurrection of the Dead is considered the 13th cardinal principle of Judaism. 

Does this mean that Judaism and Christianity remain the same?

and what’s this got to do with Art ; well, what does Art have to do with belief . From much to everything — 0 to 1’finity. belief guides choice . Artists are foundational; here before counting..ANd, artists don’t kill other artists; don’t round them into camps; don’t make claim and lay waste to each other. artists don’t make barbed wire 

At least not yet.

The chosen, accountants, automated their job . now, the chosen, programmers automate their job . The task of AI isn’t imagination it’s duplication, regurgitation and AI can only eat the digitized .

Certitude is not the test of certainty. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

Studio Table: Jul 30 ’25

Book links… quicknotes of the incoming stack. Keeping myself moving in more than one direction.

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” thomas Mann.

[Mike Csikszentmihalyi called the flow state. In flow, you realize your fullest creative potential. You lose track of time. You’re not distracted by little things around you. Flow is like a drug. Once you’ve experienced it, you want it again. ]

Shelf side

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262525206/the-bodhisattvas-brain/? [ In The Bodhisattva’s Brain, Flanagan argues that it is possible to discover in Buddhism a rich, empirically responsible philosophy that could point us to one path of human flourishing.]

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552141/planetary-eating/? [Starting from rather basic (but not quite first) principles, Planetary Eating offers impartial, fact-based analysis with firm foundations in earth and planetary sciences on how to make the right dietary choices.]

[Arendt describes in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the “masses” whom totalitarians funneled into a movement were made ready for such mobilization by a “desire to see the ruin of this whole world of fake security, fake culture and fake life. . . . Unlike the nihilism of Nietzsche and other radicalisms (Sorel, Bakunin) for them it was about destruction for its own sake: destruction without mitigation, chaos and ruin as such assumed the dignity of supreme values.”] in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,”

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549042/the-emperors-new-nudity/? [Technology, Kremnitzer writes, leads us toward an impersonal and hyperrational world to such an extent that it renders human subjectivity outmoded. Authority, on the other hand, anchors our subjective identifications to certain figures and seems to be hopelessly primitive and irrational. What is required, then, is a dialectics of the primal]