Wild beasts flee from the dangers they see -
and when they have fled they are calm.
-- Seneca
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Read postAll Is Well in the Great Mess
"That which I have said is only like the few leaves in my hand. And that which I have not said is like the dry leaves in this forest."
Remember:
Matter.
How tiny your share of it.
Time.
How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
Fate.
How small a role you play in it.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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Any person capable of angering you
becomes your master;
he can anger you only
when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
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The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on the fighting the old, but on building the new.
-- Socrates
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Read postThe Egg
July 17, 2023•1,000 words
By: Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it wa...
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
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Leben wie ein Baum, einzeln und frei
doch brüderlich wie ein Wald,
das ist unsere Sehnsucht.
Nazım Hikmet
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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Hilary Cooper
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The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
Alan Watts
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Read postDon't Quit
March 12, 2023•201 words
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.
Success ...
Read postWhen your bow is broken
September 20, 2022•96 words
Interestingly, "The Book of Mu" cites the following as a waka poem written by an old Japanese Zen Master.
When your bow is broken and your arrows are exhausted,
There, shoot!
Shoot with your whole being!
-- The Book of Mu
While an internet search has the following line written by Roger Zelazny, an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.
When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent,
then shoot,
shoot with your whole heart.
-- Roger Joseph Zelazny
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The best revenge against your enemy is not to become like your enemy.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6
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Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
-- Seneca
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I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of 'having nothing to do.' I am happiest when I have nothing to distract me and I am completely alone. . . . Even if a man has not yet discovered the path of enlightenment, as long as he removes himself from his worldly ties, leads a quiet life, and maintains his peace of mind by avoiding entanglements, he may be said to be happy, at least for the time being.
Kenkō (translated by Donald Keene), Tsurezuregusa, Chapter 75, in Donald Keene, Essay...
Read postLeaves
June 22, 2022•110 words
The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.
It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.
Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.
Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have led
Have found their own fulfilment.
Derek Mahon, The Snow Party (Oxford University Press 1975).
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Read postDo not believe in anything
June 19, 2022•118 words
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 go...
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Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed
accepting my fate I fled to the woods
to dwell and gaze in freedom
no one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds
soft grass serves as a mattress
my quilt is the dark blue sky
a boulder makes a fine pillow
Heaven and Earth can crumble and change
-- Red Pine (translator), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
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Read post"Stop Chasing After So Many Things" - Ryokan and Wang Wei
June 19, 2022•164 words
When I am in need of a sense of perspective, I often turn to the poetry of Ryokan (1758-1831) or Wang Wei (c. 701-761). Ryokan was a Zen monk who lived much of his life in a hut in the wooded hills near the coast of the Sea of Japan. (Present-day Niigata Prefecture.) He is one of the most beloved of Japanese poets, valued for his humility, his simplicity, and his integrity.
My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Onl...
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If you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.
-- Wayne Dyer
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Read postkintsukuroi
June 12, 2022•97 words
(n.) (v. phr.) "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that piece is more beautiful for having been broken
When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
Barbara Bloom
In Japan, broken objects are often repaired with gold. The flaw is seens as a unique piece of the object's history, whi...
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Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.
-- Epictetus, The Discourses
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You can't save time.
You can only spend it.
But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.
-- Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
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We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
-- Maya Angelou
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If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid
in extraneous matters — don’t wish to seem knowledgeable.
And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.
-- Epictetus
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