Thoughts in passing
How do you measure the depth of a soul?
Do you dip your toes in its timid waters?
Do you place your face just below the surface
and hope to see the bottom?
Do you throw a line in and see what manner of object it catches?
Or, do you dive in headfirst?
Lungs straining under the pressure
As you grasp the timeless sand
at the bottom of the sea with outstretched fingertips.
The struggle is great, the task divine--
to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility.
And tell me this: I must be absolutely sure.
This place I've reach, is it truly Ithaca?
There is only one thing I dread:
not to be worthy of my sufferings.
Through discipline comes freedom.
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only
what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?
Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free,
but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger,
when in a lonely place, when in a crowd.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction
that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather,
loved in spite of ourselves.
But how could you live your whole life
without a story to tell?
Old man, did you find what you were looking for?
The Old man sighed, 'No, it has eluded me.'
'How regrettable! You spent your whole life
searching for it.'
The Old man replied softly, 'Young man,
the end has always been clear to me.
It was the journey I sought.'
Intestinal Fortitude--
Do they see?
Tired hands held tight
Holding shamefully the bowels of burden,
One false step
A great exodus of Suffering.
Do they see
The chains that bind
Unseen but for the raw and the chaffed
One feeble step
Reveals the ridges and the grooves
Which then begin to spill.
Frantically, maddeningly,
Hand over hand working against
the bloody deluge
Until exhaustion reveals a grotesque and
most desperate picture.
A silent bell
That rings in anguish,
With only tired hands held tight
As my salvation.
For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be.
There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view.
I hope you live a life you're proud of.
If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness
and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!
Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves!
Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge!
Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer!
At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess,
and you with it!
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?