A creation

There is no such thing as passive receiving of Tradition.
He who receives, the disciple, is always —
must always be — the scene of a creation.
To receive is to create, to innovate!
The petrification of acquired knowledge —
the freezing of spiritual things —
allowing itself to be placed like an inert content in the mind
and to be handed on, frozen, from one generation to another,
is not real transmission….
Handing on is resumption, life, invention and renewal,
a mode without which revealed thinking,
that is to say, thinking which is authentically thought,
is not possible.

Marc-Alain Ouaknin, The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud

Poem: Cosmology

I never put much stock in that image of the earth
resting on the backs of four elephants
who are standing on the back of a sea turtle,
who is in turn supported by an infinite regression
of turtles disappearing into a bottomless forever.
I mean how could you get them all to stay still?

Now that we are on the subject,
my substitute picture would have the earth
with its entire population of people and things
resting on the head of Keith Richards,
who is holding a Marlboro in one hand
and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other.

As long as Keith keeps talking about
the influence of the blues on the Rolling Stones,
the earth will continue to spin merrily
and revolve in a timely manner around the sun.
But if he changes the subject or even pauses
too long, it’s pretty much curtains for us all.

Unless, of course, one person somehow survives
being hurtled into the frigidity of outer space;
then we would have a movie on our hands—
but wait, there wouldn’t be any hands
to write the script or make the movie,
and no theatres, either, no buttered popcorn, no giant Pepsi.

Putting that aside, let’s imagine Keith
standing on the other Rolling Stones,
who are standing on the shoulders of Muddy Waters,
and, were it not for that endless stack of turtles,
one on top of the other all the way down,
Muddy Waters would be standing on nothing at all.

                                       Billy Collins

Necessities

Man needs difficulties;
    they are necessary for health.
        
C. G. Jung, The Transcendent Function

Tolerance

Whenever I was upset by something in the papers,
[Jack] always told me to be more tolerant,
like a horse flicking away flies in the summer.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, A Hero for Our Time

 

 

 

 

Class

Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky.
Class has nothing to do with money.
Class never runs scared.
It is self-discipline and self-knowledge.
It's the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.

Ann Landers, The Ann Landers Encyclopedia: A to Z 

Everything

Words are everything
        and don't you forget it,
                ever.

        Ralph Ellison, Three Days Before the Shooting

Differences

All the lessons of psychiatry, psychology,
    social work, indeed culture,
        have taught us over the last hundred years
            that it is the acceptance of differences,
                not the search for similarities
                    which enables people to relate to each other
                        in their personal or family lives.

                        John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin

True love

Ah! some love Paris,
And some Purdue.
But love is an archer with a low I.Q.
A bold, bad bowman, and innocent of pity.
So I'm in love with
New York City.

                Phyllis McGinley

 

 

Train ride

Dream delivers us to dream,
    and there is no end to illusion.
Life is a train of moods like a string of beads,
    and, as we pass through them,
        they prove to be many-colored lenses
            which paint the world their own hue,
                and each shows only what lies in its focus.

                 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series

No Problem

Tao Te Ching, Verse 63

Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts. 

The Master never reaches for the great;
thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
she stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn’t cling to her own comfort;
thus problems are no problem for her

        Stephen Mitchell, translator

Set your mind right

You got to set your mind right
        and the rest will come to you naturally.
No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules,
        no formalities, no forbidden fruit -
                just everyone getting and giving 

                        as much as he and she can.

    Ray Charles, Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story

Notice

Everything we see in our surroundings
        raises our spirits a bit or lowers them a bit.

Christopher Alexander
quoted by Witold Rybcynski, New York Times, March 2022

Just say yes

Paul Child speaking to his wife, Julia:

Jule, you're 50 years old. . . .I got 10 years on you.
Most people we know are closing up shop.

But you've got an offer to go back to France
and to write another cookbook
and to make another season of the show.

Let's say yes to all of it,
say yes to everything for as long as we can.
Let's drop dead, someday, saying yes.

That'll be a life.

Episode 8 of the HBO television series Julia

Who's listening?

Everything's already been said,
    but since nobody was listening,
        we have to start again.

            André Gide, The Treatise of the Narcissus

Nothing of substance

God made everything out of nothing.
        But the nothingness shows through.

                Paul Valéry, Mauvaises Pensées et Autres

Excerpt: Song of the Ent and the Entwives

When Summer lies upon the world,
        and in a noon of gold,
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves
        the dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool,
        and wind is in the West,
Come back to me!
    Come back to me,
        and say my land is best!

            J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers

 

 

 

 

Expense report

Life is a business that does not cover the costs.

    Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden secrets

Above all, watch with glittering eyes
    the whole world around you
        because the greatest secrets are always hidden
            in the most unlikely places.
Those who don't believe in magic
    will never find it.

                        Roald Dahl, The Minpins