brad mehlenbacher, phd

associate professor, nc state university

observation

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" (Bertrand Russell)

overview

I wish I had more time for spare time. In the meantime, I've set aside some of the time I have — picture a minute — by labelling it "Spare." Time is calm, true, quiet....

Kinetic Typography — Language (Stephen Fry)

by RogersCreations

december 2004

I guess I'll die another day (Madonna).

january 2005

Help me find the balance I need between work, play, loving others, and self-care.

february 2005

Most people do not see choices that — objectively — do exist.

march 2005

Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments (Thich Nhat Hanh).

april 2005

Faster, Faster! I'm sciencing as fast as I can! (Professor Farnsworth, Futurama).

may 2005

To interfere with the life of things means to harm them and oneself.... He who imposes himself has that small, manifest might; he who does not impose himself has the great, secret might.... (Taoist principle of wu-wei).

june 2005

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: (1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction; (2) cowardice, which leads to capture; (3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults; (4) a delicacy of honour which is sensitive to shame; (5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble (Sun Tzu's The Art of War).

july 2005

You know, you remind me of a poem I can't remember. And a song that may never have existed. And a place I'm not sure I've ever been to (Grandpa, The Simpsons).

august 2005

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? (Albert Einstein).

september 2005

If you can make one heap of all your winnings | And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, | And lose, and start again at your beginnings | And never breath a word about your loss .... | If you can fill the unforgiving minute | With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - | Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.... (Rudyard Kipling).

october 2005

Do nothing merely out of good resolutions. Discipline yourself only to yield to love, suffer yourself to be attracted (Henry David Thoreau).

november 2005

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone (Orson Welles).

december 2005

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment (Jalad Ud-Din Rumi).

january 2006

It is a well-known finding of social psychology that observers of action tend to attribute actions to personal characteristics of the actor, rather than to the actor's situation, while actors tend to see their own behavior more as a product of the situation they are in.... (Herbsleb, Atkins, Boyer, Handel, & Finholt, CHI 2002).

february 2006

Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you (Don Juan, qtd. in Carlos Casteneda).

march 2006

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble (Keshavan Nair).

april 2006

The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly (Henry David Thoreau).

may 2006

It is not things, but what we think about things, that troubles us (Epictetus).

june 2006

How would I be if I were the person I would like to be.... How would I be, relate, create, act, feel? What leads me toward this end and what draws me back? (Lawrence Le Shan).

july 2006

Puse la frente entre las olas profundas, descendi como gota entre la paz sulfurica, y, como un ciego, regresé al jazmin de la gastada primavera humana (I leaned my head into the deepest waves, I sank through the sulfuric peace, and, like a blind man, returned to the jasmine of the exhausted human springtime) (Pablo Neruda).

august 2006

... release from our fears, resentments, inferiority complexes, negative points of view, self-centeredness, criticism of others, over-sensitiveness, inner conflicts, habits of procrastination, undisciplined sex, wasting money, boredom, false perfectionism, jealousy, and envy of others.

september 2006

Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us (William James).

october 2006

Success is not the measure of a man but a triumph over those who choose to hold him back (Bill Clinton).

november 2006

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm (Winston Churchill).

december 2006

Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand (Cool Hand Luke).


"It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth,
and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts,
the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever" (Jimmy Carter)

january 2007

Life is not a search for happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of living the right kind of a life, of doing the right thing.

february 2007

Time is the fire in which we burn (Delmore Schwartz).

march 2007

I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.... That to me is the spiritual life (Bono).

april 2007

It is futile to regret. You do one thing, you do another. So what. What's the difference. Same result (Charlie Arglist, The Ice Harvest).

may 2007

Words can eat a man alive (Ian Hunter).

june 2007

I dwell in Possibility (Emily Dickinson).

july 2007

Where do I begin and end in space? I have relations to the sun and air which are just as vital parts of my existence as my heart. The movement in which I am a pattern or convolution began incalculable ages before the (conventionally isolated) event called birth, and will continue long after the event called death. Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything. (Alan W. Watts).

august 2007

Subjectivity, by its nature, is nontransferable (Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, & Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love).

september 2007

I don't regret killing them, just killing them badly. I've gotta make amends (Frank Falenczyk, You Kill Me).

october 2007

Mistakes are just successes that you mess up (Michael Scott, The Office).

november 2007

Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and great calamity, regarded as personal conditions of the same kind (Lao-tzu, The Tao-te Ching).

december 2007

As some writer I can no longer identify remarked, every good idea has already been thought of by somebody else, who did not appreciate its significance (Carl Bereiter, Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age).

january 2008

Homer: Oh ... and how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home wine-making course and I forgot how to drive?
Marge: That's because you were drunk.
Homer: And how (The Simpsons).

february 2008

At the deeper levels, in front of the mystery of time, we are mortal beings solemnly aware of our finitude — longing, perhaps, for that in ourselves which partakes of the eternal. But at the surface levels of ourselves, in front of the problem of time, we are like frantic puppets trying to manage the influences of the past, the threats and promises of the future and the tense demands of the ever-diminishing present moment (Jacob Needleman, Time and the Soul: Where has all the Meaningful Time Gone—and can We get it Back?).

march 2008

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us (Max Frisch).

april 2008

Any framework that claims that any time, place, or organization of people will produce perfect happiness should be peremptorily dismissed, and Utopias should be given sceptical scrutiny (Daniel Nettle).

may 2008

Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize half of them are stupider than that (George Carlin).

june 2008

To be the miracle, | Get out of its way (Diane Duane, The Book of Night with Moon).

july 2008

... to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of (David Brooks, The New York Times, 8/8/08).

august 2008

Little moments like that prove to me that there is some kind of all-powerful, all-knowing force that controls everything in the universe ... and it's so fucking bored that it'll actually take time out to orchestrate a petty letdown like that (George, Dead Like Me).

september 2008

By acting like a man in love, he became a man in love again (Paris, Je T'aime, 2007).

october 2008

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate (Sarah Palin, Vice-Presidential Debate 2008).

november 2008

The one advantage to being older is that I know a few things about a few things, and I'm young enough not to forget them, and old enough to know the difference between the two. I'm old enough to take advantage of age discrimination laws, but young enough to date college girls, but old enough to know better. I'm the perfect age. I could die now, but I won't because I am young (Michael Scott, Deleted Scenes: The Office).

december 2008

The Website is hiding. Forming alliances with other sites. Preparing an attack for which we will have no defense (Dwight Schrute, The Office).


"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development,
invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears" (Edgar Allen Poe)

january 2009

The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements free as they are insignificant. What shall we choose? Weight or lightness? (Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being).

february 2009

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life (Henry David Thoreau, Walden).

march 2009

Brenda: Yeah. We live. We die. Ultimately nothing means anything.
Nate: How can you live like that?
Brenda: I don't know. Sometimes I wake up so fucking empty I wish I'd never been born, but what choice do I have (Six Feet Under).

april 2009

I know a few things about love. Horrible, terrible, awful ... awful things (Andy Bernard, The Office).

may 2009

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans (Henry David Thoreau, Walden).

june 2009

Can you find anyone that enchanting without sex. Nobody (David Kepesh, Elegy).

july 2009

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..." (Isaac Asimov).

august 2009

Fakt 48: Fakts still exist even if they are ignored (Harvie Krumpet).

september 2009

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts (John Locke).

october 2009

I am certainly wiser than this man: it is true that neither of us knows anything that is good. But he supposes that he knows something, and yet knows nothing. It is true that I too know nothing; but I do not pretend to know anything (Plato, Apology of Socrates Before His Judges, 21 D).

november 2009

The beginning of education is the examination of terms (Antisthenes).

december 2009

Love is brief; forgetting lasts so long (Pablo Neruda).

january 2010

Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to international buddhist conferences, why not just "let go, let go, let go?" For years I did nothing but this in my practice.... I'm making it very simple for you, to save you from getting caught in an incredible amount of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international buddhist conferences (Ajahn Sumedho).

february 2010

You know, when he was five, he built me a popcycle napkin holder. Dreadful design. Utterly useless (Walter Bishop, Fringe).

march 2010

Oh my God. I'm that girl. I'm that girl in high school who's afraid of real relationships and so she's always attracted to guys in college ... or Canada! (Olive Snook, Pushing Daisies).

april 2010

Narcissism is integral to the American character. Thinking that other people might be better than you is what makes you Canadian, not American (Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Nation).

may 2010

What is a life. Our life is looking forward, always looking back. That's it. That's our life. Where's the moment (Ricky Roma, Glengarry Glen Ross).

june 2010

Listen, the next time that you're worried about manners, don't. If you want to call, call. Just think of me as yourself, only with a vagina (Alex Goran, Up in the Air).

july 2010

No no no, you needn't worry about the Canadians. They're just happy to be there. Yes well, they always look surprised when they're invited (Michael Rodgers, Director of Diplomacy, In the Loop).

august 2010

Duane Benzie: You know what they say about love and war.
Tim Bisley: Yeah, one involves a lot of physical and psychological pain, and the other one's war (Spaced).

september 2010

"... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2).

october 2010

"What metaphors did he do to you? (Beatrice's Mother, Il Postino).

november 2010

"He's a fully integrated, multi-fetish, artificial being. And the best part: is that he's learning!" (Dr. Krieger, Archer).

december 2010

"[Scientific research] leads us to the important insight that there may be great differences between us with regard to the minor details of what we may perhaps know, yet we are all equal in our infinite ignorance" (Karl Popper, 1992, In search of a better world, p. 40).

january 2011

"Lemon, let me explain something that you could have no way of knowing. Emotionally unstable women are fantastic in the sack, I mean their self loathing translates into ... never mind...." (Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock).

february 2011

"If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are" (Zen Proverb).

march 2011

"The winter solstice (December 21st) ... when Wotan sacrificed himself for mankind by hanging himself on Igdrasyl, the World Tree, for suffering humanity and to restore the sun and light to mankind" (Norse Myth)

april 2011

"He's made of plastic now, which is unfortunate for him. I think a lot of life is working out how to apologize sufficiently to the one you love. If he just shot her dead, I think probably standing guard of a box for about 2000 years is about right. I mean there are some things that mowing the lawn just doesn't cover it" (Steven Moffat, Head Writer, Monster File - The Alliance, Doctor Who, 2010).

may 2011

"i do a lot of canning. Of jams. And I would like to can you" (Portlandia, 2010).

june 2011

"I will die alone and be left there. | Well I guess I'll just go home, | Oh God knows where. | Because death is just so full and man so small. | Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before. | And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. | And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. | Get over your hill and see what you find there, | With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair" (After the Storm, Mumford & Sons, 2010).

july 2011

"I'm fifty. To put in perspective, that's like 32 for ladies" (Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock).
"Fifty is the new forty, for men. Fifty is still sixty for women" (Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock).

august 2011

"I'm fine. I'm disgusted with my life and with myself, but I'm not unhappy about that. How are you?" (Hank Moody, Californication).

september 2011

"If the line is pink, you're pregnant. The line is pink. If the line is pink, you're pregnant. It is pink. If the line is pink, you're pregnant. Pink. If the line is, the line, right, the line, that's the line, that is the line, okay, if the line, got that, is pink, the color, that's the color pink, so, if the line, the line, if the line is pink, if the line is pink, you're pregnant. If, right, the, okay, line, yes, is, got that, pink, yes. Oh FUCK!" (Karen, Pulling).

october 2011

"I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much—if at all" (Steve Jobs).

november 2011

""I'm serious, yeah, I'm gonna die. When they told me, I thought I'd try and do all the things I never did but wanted to, you know, I made a list: skydive, drive a train, swim with dolphins. The problem was the first thing on the list was to do a big shitload of drinking so I could sort of slow things down a bit on the list-front" (Billy, Pulling).

december 2011

"There's 'a fine line' between 'There's' and 'between'" (Author Unknown).

january 2012

"Our life on this earth is not just a random event among billions of other random cosmic events that will pass away without a trace, ... it is an integral component or link, however minuscule, in the great and mysterious order of Being, an order in which everything has a place of its own, in which nothing that has once been done can be undone" (Václav Havel, The Art of the Impossible).