2.28.2011
2.24.2011
2.22.2011
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time :: 2.2011
And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don’t even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they’re already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs.
Excerpt from Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”Herman Hesse :: 2.2011
To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.
2.21.2011
2.19.2011
Walt Whitman :: 2.2011
These are the days that must happen to you.
- “Song of the Open Road” from “Leaves Of Grass"
- “Song of the Open Road” from “Leaves Of Grass"
2.18.2011
Sleeping Hermaphroditus :: 2.2011
Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen.
"... a lovely anecdote about the Baroque prodigy, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). Even as a youth, Bernini was completely absorbed in his work. He was quite content to spend most of his waking hours holed up in his studio, chiseling away at one sculpture or another. After a few months of this, Bernini's father began to worry that his son's love life would suffer. One day he finally told Gianlorenzo that he was letting his (very) eligible bachelorhood go to waste. To which the young man replied: "It's true, I don't have a girlfriend—I have 16 of them."
From one sleepless night
Neil Gaiman :: 2.2011
I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school.
They don’t teach you how to love somebody.
They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.
They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer.
They don’t teach you how to move on when the one you love walks away from you.
They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.
They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying.
They don’t teach you anything truly worth knowing.
They don’t teach you how to love somebody.
They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.
They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer.
They don’t teach you how to move on when the one you love walks away from you.
They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.
They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying.
They don’t teach you anything truly worth knowing.
Andre Breton :: 2.2011
Five Ways To Kill A Man
There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.
Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.
Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.
In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.
These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.
2.17.2011
Alan Watts :: 2.2011
On time -
"Time is a measure of energy, a measure of motion. And we have agreed internationally on the speed of the clock. And I want you to think about clocks and watches for a moment. We are of course slaves to them. And you will notice that your watch is a circle, and that it is calibrated, and that each minute, or second, is marked by a hairline which is made as narrow as possible, as yet to be consistent with being visible.
And when we think of a moment of time, when we think what we mean by the word "now"; we think of the shortest possible instant that is here and gone, because that corresponds with the hairline on the watch. And as a result of this fabulous idea, we are a people who feel that we don't have any present, because the present is instantly vanishing - it goes so quickly. It is always becoming past. And we have the sensation, therefore, of our lives as something that is constantly flowing away from us. We are constantly losing time. And so we have a sense of urgency. Time is not to be wasted. Time is money. And so, because of the tyranny of this thing, we feel that we have a past, and we know who we are in terms of our past. Nobody can ever tell you who they are, they can only tell you who they were.
And we think we also have a future. And that is terribly important, because we have a naive hope that the future is somehow going to supply what we are looking for. You see, if you live in a present that is so short that it is not really here at all, you will always feel vaguely frustrated."
"Time is a measure of energy, a measure of motion. And we have agreed internationally on the speed of the clock. And I want you to think about clocks and watches for a moment. We are of course slaves to them. And you will notice that your watch is a circle, and that it is calibrated, and that each minute, or second, is marked by a hairline which is made as narrow as possible, as yet to be consistent with being visible.
And when we think of a moment of time, when we think what we mean by the word "now"; we think of the shortest possible instant that is here and gone, because that corresponds with the hairline on the watch. And as a result of this fabulous idea, we are a people who feel that we don't have any present, because the present is instantly vanishing - it goes so quickly. It is always becoming past. And we have the sensation, therefore, of our lives as something that is constantly flowing away from us. We are constantly losing time. And so we have a sense of urgency. Time is not to be wasted. Time is money. And so, because of the tyranny of this thing, we feel that we have a past, and we know who we are in terms of our past. Nobody can ever tell you who they are, they can only tell you who they were.
And we think we also have a future. And that is terribly important, because we have a naive hope that the future is somehow going to supply what we are looking for. You see, if you live in a present that is so short that it is not really here at all, you will always feel vaguely frustrated."
2.14.2011
Siddhārtha Gautama, सिद्धार्थ गौतम, Buddha :: 2.2011
Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.
Siddhārtha Gautama, सिद्धार्थ गौतम, Buddha :: 2.2011
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees
with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees
with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
2.13.2011
Pablo Neruda :: 2.2011
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
2.09.2011
Je Veux - Zaz
Donnez moi une suite au Ritz, je n'en veux pas!
Des bijoux de chez CHANEL, je n'en veux pas!
Donnez moi une limousine, j'en ferais quoi?
Offrez moi du personnel, j'en ferais quoi?
Un manoir a Neufchatel, ce n'est pas pour moi.
Offrez moi la Tour Eiffel, j'en ferais quoi?
Je Veux d'l'amour, d'la joie, de la bonne humeur, ce n'est pas votre argent qui f'ra mon bonheur, moi j'veux crever la main sur le coeur
Allons ensemble, découvrir ma liberté, oubliez donc tous vos clichés, bienvenue dans ma réalité.
J'en ai marre de vos bonnes manières, c'est trop pour moi!
Moi je mange avec les mains et j'suis comme ça!
J'parle fort et je suis franche, excusez moi!
Finie l'hypocrisie moi j'me casse de là!
J'en ai marre des langues de bois!
Regardez moi, toute manière j'vous en veux pas et j'suis comme ça...
Des bijoux de chez CHANEL, je n'en veux pas!
Donnez moi une limousine, j'en ferais quoi?
Offrez moi du personnel, j'en ferais quoi?
Un manoir a Neufchatel, ce n'est pas pour moi.
Offrez moi la Tour Eiffel, j'en ferais quoi?
Je Veux d'l'amour, d'la joie, de la bonne humeur, ce n'est pas votre argent qui f'ra mon bonheur, moi j'veux crever la main sur le coeur
Allons ensemble, découvrir ma liberté, oubliez donc tous vos clichés, bienvenue dans ma réalité.
J'en ai marre de vos bonnes manières, c'est trop pour moi!
Moi je mange avec les mains et j'suis comme ça!
J'parle fort et je suis franche, excusez moi!
Finie l'hypocrisie moi j'me casse de là!
J'en ai marre des langues de bois!
Regardez moi, toute manière j'vous en veux pas et j'suis comme ça...
2.03.2011
William S. Burroughs :: 2.2011
There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.
Fernando Pessoa :: 2.2011
The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.
Eckhart Tolle :: 2.2011
What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.
T.S. Eliot :: 2.2011
There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been….
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been….
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
Julia Cameron :: 2.2011
It takes constant vigilance not to slip into negativity or simple apathy. It takes courage to believe over any given period of time that we are getting better and not sliding into decline.
2.01.2011
Oscar Wilde :: 2.2011
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
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