Death and Humor
This issue is about humor, overcoming insecurities, and the perception of death.
In this issue we’re being delighted by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, exploring three dead simple free no-code online platforms to start publishing our work and exposing ourselves to the world, and getting inspired by Gandalf’s contemplation about dying in Tolkien’s universe. And finally, in a new article we’re exploring the only commandment you need to follow to live a life of integrity.
✨ Sparks
🎵 Music: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Fantastic lighthearted, funny, and surprisingly accurate interpretation of Ennio Morricone’s ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’. The studio version by The Ukulele Orchestra is available on the album ‘The Only The Only Album by the Ukulele Orchestra That You’ll Ever Need, Vol.3’
🌐 Website: mmm, Carrd, Podia
If you ever thought about having your own website but hesitated because of the amount of knowledge, work and money such a project requires here are three solutions with varying degrees of features that are free, dead simple and enable you to built with drag & drop.
mmm lets you put together writing, images, shapes and even free drawings on an easy to use canvas with guides and previews that can be published right away with one click. You can literally get your website online in a couple of minutes. Check out the mmm-page I just put together right here.
Another such service is Carrd, which is equally dead simple but a little more mature and serious. I’m currently building my photography portfolio with it. If you need a more elaborate tool check out Podia, which is still fairly simple but provides many more features like the integration of payment solutions, email lists, webinars or downloadable content.
Such platforms are amazing playgrounds that might help to push you a little if you want to start your own thing, particularly if you’re overly critical and perfectionist like I am. Treat it as an experiment and don’t take it too serious. Experimentation reduces the feeling of failure.
🍿 Movie Snippet: White Shores - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Close to the end of the third book of The Lord of the Rings J.R.R Tolkien describes the journey to Valinor from the perspective of the Hobbit Frodo, a subtle parable on the process of dying.
‘Yes,’ said Gandalf; ‘for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone. Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.’
Then Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Peter Jackson translated this description into the movie trilogy, though slightly more overtly, in a most elegant way through a conversation of the wizard Gandalf and the Hobbit Pippin during the siege of Gondor, in a quiet moment just before the gate is broken. A scene that does not occur in the book but nevertheless remains one of my favorites in the movies.
🆕 New Content
📝 Article: The One Commandment
How to follow the path to love, peace, and content by uniting and distilling all your moral standards into one single rule.
Ferdinand Kutschker
💡 This Week’s Wisdom
“But I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality,” [The Preacher] said. “Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you live outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Muad’Dib [the messiah] came to tell you about that. Without understanding his message, you cannot revere him!”
Someone in the throng, possibly a Priest in disguise, could stand no more. His hoarse male voice was lifted in a shout: “You don’t live the life of Muad’Dib! [the messiah] How dare you to tell others how they must revere him!”
“Because he’s dead!” The Preacher bellowed. [...]
“I mean to disturb you!” The Preacher shouted. “It is my intention! I come here to combat the fraud and illusion of your conventional, institutionalized religion. As with all such religions, your institution moves toward cowardice, it moves toward mediocrity, inertia, and self-satisfaction.” [...]
“You, Priest in your mufti,” The Preacher called, “you are a chaplain to the self-satisfied. I come not to challenge Muad’Dib [the messiah] but to challenge you! Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation? Answer me, Priest!”
From Dune (Book III) by FRANK HERBERT.
Captured and resurfaced using the phenomenal Kindle reader.
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