Anxiety

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.

        Seth Godin, Poke the Box 

 

 

 

 

 

Good questions

I want to know what’s real.
I want to know what’s true.
And I also want to know why the world is going mad.

        Paul Kingsnorth, New York Times interview, October 2025

 

 

 

 

Poem: Armistice

The water sings along our keel,   

   The wind falls to a whispering breath;

I look into your eyes and feel

   No fear of life or death;   

So near is love, so far away   

The losing strife of yesterday.

We watch the swallow skim and dip;

   Some magic bids the world be still;   

Life stands with finger upon lip;

   Love hath his gentle will;

Though hearts have bled, and tears have burned,

The river floweth unconcerned.

We pray the fickle flag of truce

   Still float deceitfully and fair;

Our eyes must love its sweet abuse;   

   This hour we will not care,

Though just beyond to-morrow's gate,   

Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.

 

                     Sophie Jewett 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I led three lives

All human beings have three lives:
        public, private, and secret.

                 Gabriel García Márquez, Gabriel García Márquez: a Life

 

 

 

 

Tolerance

The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage — the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience. Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.

        Helen Keller, Optimism

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Break of Day

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because ‘tis light?

Did we lie down because ‘twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speak as well as spy,

This were the worst that it could say,

That being well I fain would stay,

And that I loved my heart and honour so,

That I would not from him, that had them, go.

Must business thee from hence remove?

Oh, that’s the worst disease of love,

The poor, the foul, the false, love can

Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath business, and makes love, doth do

Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

                John Donne

 

 

 

 

Compassion

Picasso supposedly said he never saw a painting he didn’t like.
‘Oh come on, you’re not Will Rogers,’ people said to him,
but Picasso said: ‘No, I mean it, I’ll even go to a hotel someplace
and see a little painting of flowers, and I think,
just to get the paint from here to there, well,
my heart goes out to the artist who did it.’

            Wayne Thiebaud, New York Times interview, August 23, 1996

This explains almost everything

The world has the memory of a fish.

            Albanian proverb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enigma

I can teach a man to sail,
    but I can never teach him why.

            Timothy E. Thatcher, The American Scholar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dream on

I’ll never stop dreaming,
because if you stop dreaming,
you’re just wasting eight hours a night.

        Moonlighting television series, Season 2, Episode 4

 

 

 

 

Daylight Savings Time

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

 

 

 

 

Be happy

And the Messiah said unto them, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?"

"Of course, Master!" cried the many. "It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!"

"No matter what those tortures, no matter how difficult the task?"

"Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked," said they.

"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What would you do then?"

And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.

                Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: November

Show's over, folks. And didn't October do

A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries

Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees.

Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,

While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage

And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.

Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster

Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,

Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in

To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:

TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.

The hapless customer who'd wanted something

Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

          

                Maggie Dietz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suit yourself

The philosophies behind witch and a wiccan are totally different.
A wiccan wears ceremonial black robes
and invites her body to be inhabited by an evil spirit
that commands her to perform tasks of mayhem and destruction.
A witch, on the other hand, can wear anything she wants. 

         Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert
         Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not 

 

 

 

 

 

Is that you?

For some of us, Halloween is everyday.

        Tim Burton, Tim Burton 

 

 

 

 

 

Adios, pelota

Vamos a tomar el té a casa. Un chico, que juega al fútbol en la calle, al ver que su pelota corre debajo de mi automóvil, grita: "Adiós, pelota." Borges comenta "Adiós, pelota: toda la ternura y la poesía que hay en esa frase."

We're going home for tea. A boy, playing soccer in the street, seeing his ball run under my car, shouts: "Goodbye, ball." Borges comments: "Goodbye, ball: what tenderness and poetry there is in that phrase."

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges

Job description

If Satan should ever replace God
    he would find it necessary to assume
            the attributes of Divinity.

                    Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being human

It is human nature which does not change,
        no matter the era or situation.

                Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hymn: Stand By Me

When the storms of life are raging, stand by me.
When the storms of life are raging, stand by me.
When the world is tossing me, like a ship upon the sea,
thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me.

In the midst of tribulation, stand by me.
In the midst of tribulation, stand by me.
When the hosts of hell assail, and my strength begins to fail,
thou who never lost a battle, stand by me.

In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me.
In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me.
When I do the best I can, and my friends misunderstand,
thou who knowest all about me, stand by me.

In the midst of persecution, stand by me.
In the midst of persecution, stand by me.
When my foes in battle array, undertake to stop my way,
thou who saved Paul and Silas, stand by me.

When I'm growing old and feeble, stand by me.
When I'm growing old and feeble, stand by me.
When my life becomes a burden, and I'm nearing chilly Jordan,
O thou Lily of the Valley, stand by me.

            Rev. Charles Albert Tindley

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

                William Shakespeare

Never stop

Outrun the people who quit when they feel discomfort,
outrun the people who stop because of despair,
outrun the people who are delayed because of prejudice,
outrun the people who surrender to failure,
and outrun the opponent who loses sight of the goal.
Because if you want to win, the will can never retire,
the race can never stop, and faith can never weaken. 

            Muhammad Ali, The Soul Of A Butterfly

 

 

 

 

Lengthy childhood

It is my belief, based partly on personal experience
but partly also arrived at by looking around at others,
that childhood lasts considerably longer
in the males of our species than in the females.

        Lewis Thomas, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher

 

 

 

 

 

Remember this

The memory sometimes is so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient;
at others, so bewildered and so weak;
and at others again so tyrannic, so beyond control!
We are, to be sure, a miracle every way—
but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting
do seem peculiarly past finding out.

            Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

 

 

 

 

Play on

Life is like playing a violin solo in public
and learning the instrument as one goes on.

        Samuel Butler, Speech at the Somerville Club, 1895

 

 

 

 

Woven patterns

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns,
so that each small piece of her fabric reveals
the organization of the entire tapestry.

        Richard Feynman, 1964 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University

 

 

 

 

 

Real faith

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
We feel it in a thousand things.
It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason.
This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.
We do not content ourselves
with the life we have in ourselves and in our being;
we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others,
and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.
We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve
this imaginary existence and neglect the real.

            Blaise Pascal, Pensées

 

 

 

Poem: Alumnus Football

Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team,
His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream;
When husky William tucked the ball beneath his brawny arm
They had a special man to ring the ambulance alarm.

Bill had the speed—Bill had the weight—the nerve to never yield;
From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments strewed the field;
And there had been a standing bet—which no one tried to call—
That he could gain his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.

When he wound up his college course each student’s heart was sore;
They wept to think that Husky Bill would buck the line no more;
Not so with William—in his dreams he saw the field of fame
Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of life’s big game.

Sweet are the dreams of campus life—the world which lies beyond
Gleams ever on our inmost gaze with visions fair and fond;
We see our fondest hopes achieved and on with striving soul
We buck the line and run the ends until we reach the goal.

So, with his sheepskin tucked beneath his brawny arm one day,
Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the fray;
With eyes ablaze, he sprinted where the laureled highway led—
When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.

He tried to run the ends of life—when lo—with vicious toss
A bill-collector tackled him and threw him for a loss;
And when he switched his course again and crashed into the line,
The massive guard named failure did a two-step on his spine.

Bill tried to punt out of the rut—but ere he turned the trick
Rick-tackle competition tumbled through and blocked the kick;
And when he tackled at success in one long vicious bound,
The full-back, disappointment, steered his features in the ground.

But one day when across the field of fame the goal seemed dim,
The wise old coach, experience, came up and said to him:
“Old boy,” spoke he, “the main point now before you win your bout
Is keep on bucking failure till you’ve worn the lobster out.

“Cut out this work around the ends—go in there, low and hard—
Just put your eye upon the goal and start there, yard by yard;
And more than all—when you are thrown—or tumbled with a crack—
Don’t lie there whining—hustle up—and keep on coming back.

“Keep coming back for all they’ve got and take it with a grin
When disappointment trips you up or failure barks your shin;
Keep coming back—and if at last you lose the game of right
Let those who whipped you know at least they, too, have had a fight,

“You’ll find the bread-line hard to buck and fame’s goal far away,
But hit the line and hit it hard across each rushing play;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name—
He marks—not that you won or lost—but how you played the game.” 

                         Grantland Rice

 

 

 

Sing in the shower

The arts are not a way to make a living.
They are a very human way of making life more bearable.
Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly,
is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.
Sing in the shower.
Dance to the radio.
Tell stories.
Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.
Do it as well as you possibly can.
You will get an enormous reward.
You will have created something. 

         Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An education

The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots;
the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.

            Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

 

 

 

 

Trouble

there is bound to be a certain amount of
trouble running any country
if you are president the trouble happens to you
but if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so
that most of the trouble happens to other people

        Don Marquis, archy's newest deal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turbulence

You will be free of the world's turbulence
as soon as you stop taking your thoughts so seriously.

        Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

 

 

 

Novel

The small thick book I’d wrapped my fingers around was the novel.
I had never read a novel, though I understood the concept of fiction.
It wasn’t so unlike religion, or history, for that matter.

            Percival Everett, James: A Novel

 

 

 

Welcome!

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter
        are the old apartments of religion.
   
                John Updike
                Introduction to The Best American Short Stories of 1984

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Indian Summer

Somehow it is never hard work
to mourn well in October,
Indian summer being a time
of easy mourning.
We remember the smell
of leaves burning, the smoke
drifting over the fields,
angels of wood.
In October the moon, hanging,
always comes down a little,
and a woman almost forms,
then forms just below the hills.
As if she is holding out something,
as if what she holds smells
of fields, of sage and corn,
and she’s coming up toward the house.
And somehow we feel
we have always known her.
In her gourd cup she carries
the moon, there is a musk
on her dried flowers,
and the moments of her voice
hang down like grapes.
And since we are alone
we can suffer such sentiment,
there in the twilight,
the road past our house
a long door asking us in.

                 Don Welch