Treat yourself

One of the secrets of a happy life
    is continuous small treats,
        and if some of these can be inexpensive
            and quickly procured so much the better.

                Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A distinction

Mobilizing is about getting people to do a thing,
    and organizing is about getting people to become
        the kind of people who do what needs to be done.

                Hahrie Han, The New Yorker, October 2024

Spring forward

I object to being told that I am saving daylight
when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind...
At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme,
I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism,
eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier,
to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.

        Robertson Davies, The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

 

 

 

 

International Women's Day

 Join the union, girls, 

        and together say  

                Equal Pay for Equal Work.

                            Susan B. Anthony, The Revolution

 

 

 

 

  

Poem: Dear March—Come in—

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

            Emily Dickinson 

The way home

Actually, I doubt that it was "progress" that most interested [physicist] Richard [Feynman]. He was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to find new ideas to explain. The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to someone else.

I remember a conversation we had a year or so before his death, walking in the hills above Pasadena. We were exploring an unfamiliar trail and Richard, recovering from a major operation for the cancer, was walking more slowly than usual. He was telling a long and funny story about how he had been reading up on his disease and surprising his doctors by predicting their diagnosis and his chances of survival. I was hearing for the first time how far his cancer had progressed, so the jokes did not seem so funny. He must have noticed my mood, because he suddenly stopped the story and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"

I hesitated. "I'm sad because you're going to die."

"Yeah," he sighed, "that bugs me sometimes too. But not so much as you think." And after a few more steps, "When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway."

We walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then we came to a place where another trail crossed and Richard stopped to look around at the surroundings. Suddenly a grin lit up his face.

"Hey," he said, all trace of sadness forgotten, "I bet I can show you a better way home."

And so he did.

        Danny Hillis, Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine, longnow.org

Flexibility

The willow which bends to the tempest
often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

    Walter Scott, The Works of Sir Walter Scott: The pirate