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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imposter Syndrome

Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.

On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”

And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.

                        Neil Gaiman, 2017 blog entry

 

 

 

  

The secret to having extra time

I don’t know whether my life has been a success or a failure.
But not having any anxiety about becoming one instead of the other,
and just taking things as they come along,
I’ve had a lot of extra time to enjoy life.

                Harpo Marx, Harpo Speaks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No insults

Re-examine all you have been told
at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

        Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for light

It's October, and the shorter days have made us hungrier,
depriving us of light and forcing us to look for it in other people.

         Billy-Ray Belcourt, Coexistence: Stories

 

 

 

 

 

What did you expect?

People generally see what they look for,
         and hear what they listen for.

                Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

 

 

 

 

 

Yes or No

I have come to believe that there are really two religions in the world:
Those people in religions who say ‘yes’ to life and
those people in religions who say ‘no’ to life.
And I think people who share the ‘yes’ to life in different religions
have more in common with each other than they do with people
in their own culture or specific religious tradition who say ‘no’ to life.

                    Rabbi Arnie Belzer, 1944-2025 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Prayer for Tashlich

Here I am again
ready to let go of my mistakes.

Help me to release myself
from all the ways I've missed the mark.

Help me to stop carrying
the karmic baggage of my poor choices.

As I cast this bread upon the waters
Lift my troubles off my shoulders.

Help me to know that last year is over,
washed away like crumbs in the current.

Open my heart to blessing and gratitude
Renew my soul as the dew renews the grasses.

And we say together:
Amen.
             

                        Rachel Barenblat 

Proper balance

It occurs to me that there is a proper balance
between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.
It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression.
Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement,
there is no spur even to get the dishes washed.
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

        May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Don't give up

 Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up.

        W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads And Savoy Songs

Yom Kippur

Should I not atone for the sins I have committed,
All that I have ever said will be a lie.

        Milarepa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

 

 

 

 

 

Check it out

Librarian is a service occupation,
    gas station attendant of the mind.
        In an earlier age, I might have made things.
            Now I only make things available.

                        Richard Powers, Gold Bug Variations

 

 

 

 

 

FIne line

There’s a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

        Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

 

 

 

Walking wounded

It is often said that the Church is a crutch.
    Of course it’s a crutch.
        What makes you think you don’t limp?

                William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Credo

 

 

 

 

Poem: In conversation with myself (2:49am)

I’d like to go back to sleep now.
Oh, I don’t think quite yet. We have things to talk about.
I don’t want to talk. I want to sleep.
Or we could play a fun game.
Or sleep.
Nope. Fun game time.
What’s the game?
It’s called “Your life is a complete failure.”
That’s not a fun game.
It is for me.
But aren’t you me?
Yes and no.
And can’t I control you?
Good luck with that. Let’s review your twenties.
Please don’t.
You poured a pitcher of beer on your head at a happy hour with your boss present.
Oh Christ.
Then you . . .
Nope . . .
C’mon. I love this one. You said, “Look at the rack on that waitress.”
I didn’t know she was his wife.
What about that time, in a meeting, you thought Arkansas ended with the letter “w” . . .
You suck.
And wrote it on a whiteboard in a staff meeting and everyone laughed. At you.
I’m going to sleep.
Fine. Good night.
Really?
Sure. Sleep well.
Oh. Okay.
Lyme disease.
What?
Nothing . . .

        John Kenney,  Love Poems for Anxious People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's worse than we thought

Observations in animals have found that, for most, over 70% of waking life is spent being afraid, stressed or anxious. And in primates, where social conflict is a bigger part of the equation, this number rises to 85%. Research also suggests that negative feelings are felt twice as strongly as positive ones and that cortisol—the primary stress hormone—delivers effects that last thirty to sixty times longer than dopamine or serotonin, further exacerbating this hellish existence.

        Nick Lynch, The Bowling Broke Substack