vanity Ruby That vain boy, catching his reflection in the storefront window as he walks past. Oh, he loves what he sees. So do I. Sleep with me; you can pretend I'm you. 991229 ... Q "Vanity, thy name is 'woman'." So spaketh Shakespeare, incorrectly in two respects. First, surely not woman alone. Second, among "woman," the fraction your advisor has known well enough to make a judgment about their vainness and who are vain enough that on occasion that is a problem interfering with their and others' enjoyment of life is happily very small, and certainly no larger than the fraction so vain among the similarly situated of the other gender. Perhaps what Shakespeare meant was that women, when they are vain, are vainer on the average than men in that state. Still, your advisor's experience, such as it is, also does not support that position. Maybe Shakespeare was not a sexist pig and just needed a good line to arouse the women in his audiences? So good that they'd be aroused with such vengeance that they'd arouse the men too? For this view tere is historical support. He was heard to say once "The one here who has the right to be, alas the duty to be, VAIN is me! Me, mich, moi, my lonesome, myself, I. Not the queen - ah ha, there's a woman for ya! Is she in love yet? - not you, or you, or you, nope, just ME! Vanity, thy name is Shakespeare, William J. T. Shakespeare the First. "Truth be damned. "I'm not a tax collector, jury foreperson, webdesigner, oceanographer, chemist, physicist, mathematician, statistician, queen's consort, philosopher, lawyer - damn, they make me mad, kill 'em all - or any other kind of seeker of money, stars, power, knowledhge, truth, or an Earth thermally stable for the next 700,000 years. I'm just a pitiful playwright. "I'm here to write a play to steam the world. Tick 'em off. Wake 'em up. Get 'em at one another. Hell, yes, excite 'em! Get 'em to piss and moan together. For those purposes, the line works, and so we're usin' it." Copr. 2000 000116 ... Shar no one likes it and no one needs it. 000226 ... amy i was maybe watching tv the other day, Law and Order, i think. the cops were at the crime scene. for some reason somebody bellowed, "vanity, thy name is woman!" and then the female cop sneered, "it's frailty, you misogynist!" ha, ha. see, the Hamlet quote is frailty. nobody know where this vanity thing comes from... if i had to pick, maybe i'd pick vanity, dye my hair flaming red, and make long speeches on the benefits of egoism. maybe not. 000227 ... BoofPixie i'm vain. vainer than any other girl who can wear the same clothes for so many days in a row. this makes the third day. and i still look in the mirror--five minutes a pop--and adjust. 000310 ... miniver Blather is vanity of the mind. In fact, communication, itself, is vanity, these days. "I need food." "I need shelter." "Let's make babies." Aha. Substantial communication...possibly. Don't argue, damnit. 000411 ... miniver Vanity seems to outweigh the tug. Or that may just be idle obsession. Idle obsessions continues to weigh the most of all, in my case. 000412 ... dallas she calls my name and I try not to look. I want to look more than anything else I have ever wanted. But I don't. And does she notice? 000413 ... merimill you're right, blather is vanity of the mind. 000413 ... Free Man is but a drop in a boundless ocean. 000413 ... amy we win. LET'S ROCK! (cold carpet gang) 000413 ... lisa_is_bionic I don’t want it, I just want your eyes fixated on me. 000526 ... amorfus "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" 000526 ... grendel my pronounced self-loathing is, in its own strange way, a form of vanity 000527 ... MollyGoLightly Grendel gets a gold star for that one.. 000527 ... WoNDERGIRL all we are is all we are 000528 ... Brad make that 2 gold stars for grendel 000528 ... lookatme you indeed must harbour a streak of vanity to have find yourself in this tangle of other peoples vanitys 010308 ... cynical preening bird vanity is not such a bad thing the fact that we are social creatures breeds vanity as a means of interaction what sad solitary creatures we would be without vanity. i tell you that i hate myself, i am still telling you about me if i tell a lover that i will do anything to make her happy it is because her presence makes me happy and is, therefore, still about me. all is vanity. even the humble, heroic types, behind their eyes are secretly getting off on the adulation 010309 ... nocturnal is a ridiculous, shallow thing, but no one can truly say they have none. 010309 ... p2 the smurf with the mirror 021231 ... Rhin if you could increase your I.Q. by forty points by having an ugly scar stretching from your mouth to your eye, would you do so? (the book of questions) 021231 ... p2 scars are cool chicks dig scars plus with the extra 40 points i'll learn me some do-it-yourself plastic surgery 021231 ... x i think i'd skip the proposition altogether. i'm starting to think that intelligence is directly related to depression. 021231 ... p2 ignorance_is_bliss? 021231 ... sixfingers im vain.. i know i look good.. those words flow through my head.. I'd fuck me.. checking myself out in the mirror does being vain make me a shallow person? no.. it's a part that makes me who i am... checking my refelction , Damn i look good 030104 ... ShilohLives the reson for my curiosity about if I'll ever have kids when I grow up.. hahaha..I'm sooo dumb. 030623 ... Dafremen I'm dumber...more vain and better looking. 030623 ... god i'm dumber. 030624 ... endless desire mirros consume. why don't you just waste away looking at your own reflection? i swear to you that it's lying. it's always lying. 031127 ... ... me 040112 ... meowzer ha! darling, i assure you that i am much more vain than you are. 040112 ... Alfred Profit is not vain. It is the most eloquent and pragmatic impulse. It's imperative cannot be judged by all you tortured souls here. Fragile flowers and all of that. Posh! Profit IS. 040112 ... mt define profit. 040112 ... Alfred We all have a sense of what profit is. I'll indulge your request for definition and clarification of terms. Pronunciation: 'prafit Matching Terms:   Proficience, proficiency, Proficient, proficiently, Proficuous, profile, profile drawing, Profiling, Profilist, profit and loss, profit and loss account, profit margin, profit sharing, profit taker, profitability, profitable, profitableness, profitably, profit-and-loss statement, profiteer, Profiting, profitless, profitlessly, profit-maximising, profit-maximizing, profits     Definition:   [n]  the advantageous quality of being beneficial [n]  the excess of revenues over outlays in a given period of time (including depreciation and other non-cash expenses) [v]  make a profit; gain money or materially; "The company has not profited from the merger" [v]  derive benefit from     Synonyms:   benefit, earnings, gain, lucre, net, net income, net profit, profits, turn a profit     Antonyms:   break even, lose, turn a loss     See Also:   account, accumulation, acquire, advantage, bring in, capitalise, capitalize, cash in on, clean up, cleanup, clear, dividend, earn, earning per share, gain, get, gross profit, gross profit margin, income, killing, line one's pockets, make, make a scoop, margin, markup, net, part, percentage, portion, profitability, profitableness, profiteer, pull in, pyramid, realise, realize, sack, sack up, scoop, share, take advantage, take in, turn a nice dime, turn a nice dollar, turn a nice penny, vantage, windfall profit     Webster's 1913 Dictionary     Definition:   \Pro"fit\, n. [F., fr. L. profectus advance, progress, profit, fr. profectum. See {Proficient}.] 1. Acquisition beyond expenditure; excess of value received for producing, keeping, or selling, over cost; hence, pecuniary gain in any transaction or occupation; emolument; as, a profit on the sale of goods. Let no man anticipate uncertain profits. --Rambler. 2. Accession of good; valuable results; useful consequences; benefit; avail; gain; as, an office of profit, This I speak for your own profit. --1 Cor. vii. 35. If you dare do yourself a profit and a right. --Shak. Syn: Benefit; avail; service; improvement; advancement; gain; emolument. \Prof"it\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Profited}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Profiting}.] [F. profiter. See {Profit}, n.] To be of service to; to be good to; to help on; to benefit; to advantage; to avail; to aid; as, truth profits all men. The word preached did not profit them. --Heb. iv. 2. It is a great means of profiting yourself, to copy diligently excellent pieces and beautiful designs. --Dryden. \Prof"it\, v. i. 1. To gain advantage; to make improvement; to improve; to gain; to advance. I profit not by thy talk. --Shak. 2. To be of use or advantage; to do or bring good. Riches profit not in the day of wrath. --Prov. xi.   There's something in Corintians as well. Rummage through any concordance if you still need clarification, although I suspect you don't need clarification you have your mind made up already what profit means to you. The old lawyers adage never ask a question you don't know the answer to already seems to apply. Enjoy. 040112 ... misstree i know what profit means to me. i want to know what profit means to *you.* how can i know what you mean by a statement such as "Profit is not vain. It is the most eloquent and pragmatic impulse. It's imperative cannot be judged by all you tortured souls here. Fragile flowers and all of that. Posh! Profit IS." and expect me to correctly interpret what you are attempting to say, when i know that your concept of profit is very likely different than mine. i'm betting that your Colorized Concept of the word profit is a bit more in depth than the dictionary, and not entirely composed of pronunciation and synonyms and atonyms. paint me a picture of profit, and i will fit it into your statement so that i may understand your words. 040112 ... Alfred I'm busy bathing in tepid equatorial water right now. My Malay boy friday is buffing my shoes. He was demoted from a police constable for delving into some of my more risque affairs. Profit. Profit is good. Profit is amoral. Profit doesn't have a conscience. Profit seeks it's own reward. Profit is so perfectly implacable. Profit is the piston that drives me ever forward. Proftit is the beating black heart of Corporate raison'd'tre. Profit. 040112 ... misstree what form do you seek profit in? money? power? if so, what kind? experiences? wisdom? what exactly is it that you Value? 040112 ... Alfred I have answered your request for clarification. Feel free to extrapolate. Profit in it's absolute pristine form, sheared of the "distraction" of whim, intuition, bias, and political amelioatives is a vital imperative, a high calling in that it represents the rubric, the goal of business. The goal of every honest, hardworking, awakened citizen. It is men/women who exploit and excavate human dignity. This is it's true voice, this is what you've been trying to hear, this is the aim of all your probes for clarification. To entertain voluptuous vision (not dream, for dreams are for the inactive, the corpulent laggard rocked to sleep in his hammock) is to seek the Everest of profit. Every action engaged to attain it. All are united by it, in some way or another. The lazy hand shapes every link in the chain that eventually indentures the dreamer tobecome the slave to another. The business person clothes his/her mind in the armor of it's rubric, shods the feet with the implacable truth. Build, produce, expand. Choice. 040112 ... zeke Ayn Rand? Is that you? I thought you were dead. 040112 ... Alfred Very, very astute. If I were asleep in the narcotic of Platonic pap I'd say Ayn Rand is one of the apostle's in the church of commerce. 040112 ... zeke Ayn Rand was a 19th century thinker. 040112 ... sorry meritocracy is a rich man's myth. it presupposes acess to the foot of the ladder. most people do not even have maps with the city the ladder is in marked on them. there is (and never will be) anything remotly like a level playing field. 040112 ... Alfred Her philophy intersects axiomatically with the precepts of businessthink. 040112 ... zeke Who are the other Apostles? 040112 ... Alfred Competition is neccessary. 040112 ... zeke It leaves details to the little people. 040112 ... zeke No, competition is inevitable, not necessary. 040112 ... zeke What are the precepts of businessthink? 040112 ... zeke i leave you to yourself. enjoy the fruits of your labor. 040112 ... zeke btw, say hi to bruce wayne and dick grayson for me, Alfred 040112 ... Alfred It is tragic that some of you are so bogged down in your deeply cherished biases that you cannot dump all that clutter out and make room for a simple viable truth. 040112 ... misstree it's a shame you're so immersed in your "simple viable truth" that you consider it beneath yourself to explain such concepts as profit, benefit, pride, work, or how these conclusions came about... i consider a day enjoyed to be a profitable one... i live for my own entertainment, and all other spinning tendrils that entails... and you seem to think that simply because we speak outside of dictionaries and grammar books that it is a flaw, when from what i have seen it can be a more efficient way of communicating... language is not black and white, profit is not a dictionary definition, it is a different creature in the mind of every person. and yeah, meritocracy *would* be great, but then again, it's the sociopath in me that thinks it's the coolest. ayn_rand was a frigid bitch. i'd like to vomit hurricane and have noisy sex all over her grave. but hey, that's just me. to each their own. no, i'd like to erect a billboard that says that right over her grave, because that was what she was missing, that yes it pleases me to create and be productive, but i have other pleasures, and there is more than singularity. *several men leap out of a black van, slap a hand over misstree's mouth, and haul her away.* sorry about the disturbance, folks, we've had problems when she wanders into this neighborhood before. she and this rand lady have a past. won't happen again. 040112 ... Alfred That was a prodigious waste of emotion and opinion. Profit. Your question was answered. Profit is a universal standard that applies to everyone. Everyone should subscribe to it. Profit is rational. Profit is the abacus that keeps the corporate ship on course. Profit is good. Profit is not so much an external authority for dreamers and those who live merely by their appetites. Ayn Rand's undoing was eventually authored by her own lapses into poison of cultism and deification of her ego, and the corruption of envy. Your gyrations are meaningless to me. You are creating your own cancer well. Free yourself of these encumberances. Profit is the talismanic embodiment of the purest virtue. Govern your life by it and it will accrue all good things unto you. 040113 ... misstree i have no desire to accrue earthly goods, they add very little of Value to my life, and at times indeed detract from it, such as when i am moving to a new place, as variety among experiences is something that has high Value to me. things like working jobs that do not cause me more stress than neccesary or intrude on my life outside of their scheduled times, blowing my money on booze and drugs and video games and books and dinners out with friends, add Value to every moment that continues. for me, there is little Value in owning a house, a car, toys and more toys. if it brings me no joy, why should i pursue it? this is why i asked you to define Profit. you define it in purely material terms, but because of the complexities of our ability to think and communicate using complex symbolic sets, we have more than base animal needs; we have things like human interaction and personal growth as commong Values in the human experience. profit is not always something you can look at in a ledger or set on a table. a night spent watching a sunset is more Valuabe than a night spent watching a clock tick, to a great many people. if this is not the case for yourself then great, so be it, but don't expect the rest of the world to simply stop placing Value in silly little things like emotions and human interactions and subjective beauty and Joy because you attempt to claim that they are meaningless; you fail to support this supposition, instead going on about how Valuable Profit is, and meaning material acquisitions by Profit but refusing to define it; it's easier to defend a slippery concept, neh? and easy to sling unsupported statements that attempt to slander other slippery concepts. for all your rigid ideas, you sure do like things to be extra flexible for your needs, but if you don't nail down any concepts you'll still be sliding around, playing with meaningless words. come on now. it's not that hard. 040113 ... Vanity Thy Name Is Alfred 040113 ... . misstree - check your email 040113 ... misstree i see. fine. you're there, i'm here, you're done, i'm done. just don't bother calling in the morning unless you can find some damn profitable reason to send flowers first. foocking objectivists... like talking to a pitbull with his eyes on a new york strip steak... 040113 ... Not for profit GREED is all you see Alfred, not profit. Is that not one of the deadly sins (and I stress sins)? We are not worthy of your attentions. . 040113 ... Albert Apparently we have two extravagantly different ideas of what profit is. I have adequately defined what profit is to me. The distance between the two is staggering and yet neither you or I can compell one another to ameliorate the distance of the two. Here's my stake of truth, I'm stabbing it deep into the ground before me. For me yes profit is on one hand the product of the application of an unremitting vigilance to a certain ethos, an abnegation of the carnal self to the fruition of certain goals and measures, certain standards measured by the ledger or market place. I am deeply vested in said ethos. Your pursuit of a sybaritic life style is within the province of your perogative. I suspect though that a little morning martial music would tighten up the sphincter and blunt some of our more acute appetites. Maybe I'm being facetious maybe I'm not. How can you not fathom the virtue the elegant superiority of the profit motive being applied to ones life? If I ablate all else before it's shrine..why then I am free of guilt, free of depression, free of pouring psychosis and venom into the capillaries of my conscience/mind. Free to deconstruct the fallacies of ecumenical conmen and corrupt power grabbing, liberty robbing heads of government. I am free to live a long life, in good health. I vigorously challenge your pie in the sky notion that ones life cannot be exalted to the efficient methodologies and exacting calculus of the ledger. Let the wind separate the chafe. Let the roots go down deep. When one creates objective value (not narrow esoteric abstractions subject to aesthetic and overtly emotional interpretation)one realizes that through his/her labor (cerebral/physical)that they have enhanced not just their own but other lives as well. Self esteem is resurrected. Self respect set in concrete. The stratagems of gypsies and con-artists and romantic manipulators and those choking in their own manufactured methane clouds of jade mist are bludgeoned into sub-atomic particles. Maybe my inaugeral salvos challenged some settled beliefs. Perhaps caught up in the zeal of my own spirit I spoke injudiciously about individuals I know nothing about. Okay. I get that. It was an unfortunate and yes initially painful way to begin a dialogue. Perhaps even a little jarring to some. I could write reams of this stuff but I doubt, if the distance between us can ever be breached. How needlessly we carry these corpses upon our backs. One day though the Sleeper will awake. What kind of a world will he/she awake to? What will be written in the margins of ledger? What will be left to barter and negotiate with? I feel you are making an inadequate argument drowning in metaphysics, you feel I am making an inadequate argument that just barely grazes the substance of what constitutes your apprehension of what definition is. Should we sit here and soil ourselves at the disparity? Should not everyone pursue happiness? Cannot prosperity go a long way in ameliorating unhappiness, exigency, ill mental and physical health, adequate schooling for children nibbling on poisoned paint chips? All of the neurosis and phobic tendencies that lock us in our closets and bury maggot eggs in our hearts can be placed upon the scales and whieghed for their virtue, their viability, their USE in the calculus of a LIFE. Shall we choose to live honestly. To harden ourselves, our hearts our minds against the vicciccitudes and vagaries of corrupt sacks of rotting flesh? Do we let circumstances mire us into the pathology of melancholy and self-pity or do we ressurect a self, subject all of our whinings and oh me oh my's to an efficient abacus of reasoning. I use my scapel and sharpen it every day to focus my faculties upon the clarity of the values I choose to govern my life by. Oh but the mind is tricky and it will erect all kinds of stratagems to refute the prospect of radical changel. The young the old have FREE CHOICE and we can frame our futures within the frame of our own choosing. We can poison ourselves or we can truly begin to radically liberate ourselves. Free Choice! We do not have to respond to certain impulses or machinations hurled at us from within and without. Profit and NOT exploitation is an honest rubric to live a life by as well as run a company. Have a prosperous life everyone Albert 040113 ... Alfred Dammit! It's Afred! 040113 ... Hehe And what are you Afred of? An Ethel? . 040113 ... Alfred Dammit!! It's Alfred!!! Curse this schism of personhood!!!!! 040113 ... Tacitus Hey Al - King Henry VIII act one scene one. 'Kay? Let your "supposed omniscience chew on that for a while. 040113 ... Alpha_Shell what i was blessed with... 040207 ... Hal Incadenza wtf? 040303 ... "Alfred" You should probably take an eigth grade primer in grammer before you so cavelierly and inexactly toss of your witticisms and suggestions. You dare to use a pseudonym such as Tacitus. The rank arrogance of it! *stalks off to closet to procure enema fusilage* 040331 ... tyler waters i agree ayn rand is a frigid bitch 040707 ... tyler waters correct me if i'm wrong, but the earth is a FINITE system. thus, to aquire profit, one must take away from another. What profit does is it turns the world into a cold miserable place. A dog eat dog world. Alfred: Would you ever kill someone for profit? How about subject them to the lowest form of living on the planet? Would you throw people in sweatshops and pay them pennies? It's all in the name of profit. Profit? I call it taking advantage of other people to benefit oneself. 040707 ... acidshank vanity is like an orgasm for the weak 041123 ... Rudy Ray Moore I like profit.Beatch bettah have mah money. Or I'll go upside her head wif mah pimp cane. (makes unitellible noise by pressing his ample lips together forcing air through and shaking his violently) 041123 ... andru235 isn't it a vanity of sorts, to endlessly parade about being humble? 050308 ... amy some of this is leaving me, and I'm mostly glad. Confused, though, hard to believe that it could be just a waste of time.... somehow to walk six inches above the ground, was just what i needed... for a time. and it's shameful that I can't re-piece it all together, for my memory's sake and to have a story to tell.... 080513 ... grendel My favorite of Prince's female proteges 080513 ... jane vanity is man's obligation that makes it mine i've had my revelation just passing time {towcutter} 080514 ... z leto II 080515 what's it to you? who go blather from