Terror Management Theory and God shaped holes

How awareness of our mortality may be a major driver of civilization
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climbing-mount-immortality&print=true
I particularly like the concept of "Terror Management Theory - awareness of one's mortality focuses the mind to create and produce to avoid the terror that comes from confronting the mortality paradox that would otherwise, in the words of the theory's proponents psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, reduce people to 'twitching blobs of biological protoplasm completely perfused with anxiety and unable to effectively respond to the demands of their immediate surroundings.'"

This reminds me of the quote from Salmon Rushdie  about us all having a God shaped hole inside us which we are constantly trying to fill, and that art, creation, suggests itself to us for this purpose : "I, too, possess the same God-shaped hole. Unable to accept the unarguable absolutes of religion, I have tried to fill up the hole with literature"
 
When googling this, I found a follow up quote from Rushdie which is also worth repeating : "I used to say: "there is a God-shaped hole in me." For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important."

Samsung slogan : "Happy forever"

Like that one (seen on billboard in documentary in Seoul). Something forced smile asian about it, but still with an admirable optimism it would be wrong to scorn. Reminds me a bit of the "danger cliff" sign I  saw in china, with its cheery "nice to live!" accompanying exhortation. Happy forever, in fairy tale gadget land...

billboard philosopy : you're not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic

nice little quote which captures how easy it is to ignore our own role in problems, and blame other people.

Aristotle, actions speak louder than reasons

From Story, by Robin McKie :
"As Aristotle observed, why a man does a thing is of little interest once we see the thing he does. A character is the choices he makes to take the actions he takes. Once the deed is done his reasons why begin to dissolve into irrelevancy."