The Purdzilla Show

The full quote: “ Imagination is more important than knowledge . For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (Einstein)

We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives (Robert M. Pirsig) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the only book I've read more than four times. It's that good and it changed my life! Pirsig tells it like it is - we DO keep passing unseen, in the margins of other people's lives.

If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine - Obi Wan Kenobi   I'll be using the world genius a lot on The Purdzilla Show , and a few times in this post. For instance- George Lucas is a genius and this scene is a masterful one - it's not hard for me to project back to 1977 and the first time I saw it. The power and the resonance remains. The soundscape, the light sabers (genius creation), the now iconic Darth Vader costume, John Williams score, Alec Guinness' enigmatic delivery, the colour palette - that all helps but it's that line I love the most.  The idea of sacrifice and the implicit warning to Darth Vader that he unwisely ignores, the idea that death results in us becoming a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody.  That's what I love.

William Goldman 's cynicism, as The Man In Black from The Princess Bride, nails it! Goldman is a literary genius and not bad at screenwriting ( Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, Marathon Man are three). Sometimes life is pain . The Man In Black is pissed at Buttercup and he expresses his pissedness with a postmodern cynicism that is hard to resist.  It's genius is what it is!  Subliminally, y ou can't help smiling as he says it while internalising the message. Helps us feel better in our temporary painful moments.  Mr Goldman! Love you man!

Sitting still is essential to the journey

I remember watching a weird movie in the eighties called The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension . I don't remember much about the movie and I haven't seen it since 1984 but I loved this quote and repeated to my colleagues and students whenever I could.   The message is pretty simple - Neil Finn was certainly paying attention - you always take the weather with you!

I have a wall display made up of my favourite aphorisms/quotes. I intend shifting these from my wall to The Purdzilla Show starting...NOW! They come from a variety of sources - popular culture, literature, song lyrics, movies, history - everywhere!  Along the way I'll try to explain why I love them - why they are favourites.  John Mellancamp kicks us off and will feature a few times; he manages to encapsulate some deep wisdom in a short phrase in a lot of his songs. This one comes from Jack and Diane . John's message of keeping alive that spirit of youth within yourself resonates with me.

This is my display board by my work station at school.  Notice it has only one piece of paper relating to administrivia - the daily routine. The rest is made up of some favourite quotes, photos, postcards - stuff that means something to me. Bottom right is the greatest thing I got from my studies at UNITEC for a Masters in Educational Management a few years ago - it came from Nissan and it summarises their approach to continuous improvement. It's sweet and simple and pretty cool!

Metaphorically, I have this poem by Japanese zen poet Ryokan tattooed in my heart to remind me that thinking you are in control of where the maple leaf lands is counterproductive and pointless:   Maple leaf Falling down Showing front Showing back

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: If you follow your bliss , you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss , you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time. BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden hands? JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.