Poem: On Clothes

And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.
     And he answered:
     Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
     And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
     Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
     For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

     Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”
     And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,
     But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
     And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
     Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
     And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
     And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

                    Kahlil Gibran 

A recipe for life

David Frost:
What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?

Muhammad Ali:
I'd like for them to say:
He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

        From a 1974 interview with David Frost

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Frost: What would you like people to think about you when you've gone? Muhammad Ali: I'd like for them to say: He took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, One teaspoon of generosity, One pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, One pinch of concern. And then, he mixed willingness with happiness. He added lots of faith, And he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime, And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.” — Muhammad Ali "Recipe of life" video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7iPACdA1HQ Interview with David Frost (1974)

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1831295-muhammad-ali-david-frost-what-would-you-like-people-to-think-a/

The way you are

The moment when you really experience
that you have created yourself being whatever way you are,
at that same moment you will never have to be that way again.

Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, William Bartley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening day

Baseball is not life.
It is a fiction, a metaphor.
And a ballplayer is a man
who agrees to uphold that metaphor
as though lives were at stake.

        David James Duncan, The Brothers K

 

 

 

 

Celebrity

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.
As soon as one is aware of being “somebody” to be watched
and listened to with extra interest, input ceases,
and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation.
One can either see or be seen.

        John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What we want

Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted.
I know what women want.
They want a whole lot of people to talk to.
What do men want?
They want a lot of pals,
and they wish that people wouldn’t get so mad at them.

        Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open to wonder

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves,
there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness
in which time rolls on and leaves us behind. …
those who are open to the wonder will not miss it.
Faith is found in solicitude for faith,
in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere.

        Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Holy Dimension