What to do?

When the going gets weird,
        the weird turn pro.

                Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

 

 

If only

[W]hen everybody starts hovering over me,
I get cross, then sad,
and finally end up turning my heart inside out,
the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside,
and keep trying to find a way to become what I'd like to be
and what I could be if…
if only there were no other people in the world.

    From the final entry in the diary kept by Anne Frank, August 1, 1944

 

 

 

 

 

Choice

Willpower is just another name for the idea
of choosing long-term outcomes rather than short-term ones.

    António R. Damásio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

 

 

 

 

Degrees of understanding

The superior man understands what is right;
the inferior man understands what will sell.

        Confucius, in Oriental Philosophy

 

 

 

 

 

Temptation

When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom,
it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe
that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.

        Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne

 

 

 

 

 

Make space

Every religion must wrestle with its dark angels,
and so today must we: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
For we are all children of Abraham
and it will only be when we make space for one another
as brothers and sisters that we will redeem the world
from darkness and walk together in the light of God.

    Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Debate in the House of Lords, 2019

Poem: The Lost Hotels Oo Paris

The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back. What a bargain.
Like being young for a while. We are
allowed to visit hearts of women,
to go into their bodies so we feel
no longer alone. We are permitted
romantic love with its bounty and half-life
of two years. It is right to mourn
for the small hotels of Paris that used to be
when we used to be. My mansard looking
down on Notre Dame every morning is gone,
and me listening to the bell at night.
Venice is no more. The best Greek islands
have drowned in acceleration. But it’s the having
not the keeping that is the treasure.
Ginsberg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough.

                Jack Gilbert