I poop. Surely, I would have exploded in my youth if I hadn’t developed the habit. I feel my quality of life as a human must be better than the quality of life of gut bacteria in wall-spattered fecal matter. At least I have the leisure and capacity to contemplate such things.
EPIPHANIES.
But, if you think about it, writing is miraculous. In the scheme of gifts that nature grants, it is way out beyond left field. Encoding ideas and images in simple characters in a way that can evoke emotional or cognitive responses in readers is kind of a superpower. (As is reading.)
Nurse. I think it takes a tremendous level of humility and compassion. Also, I suspect it may be among the last handful of human jobs (as we know them now) to still exist once AI-robots start doing pretty much all productive tasks better, faster, and more efficiently than humans. I think long after our doctors are machines, we will have human nurses.
Life has become immeasurably better
Hunter s. Thompson
since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
If asked the nature of cha no yu*
Sen Sotan
Say it’s the sound of wind blow pines
In a painting.
*”Tea ceremony” in Japanese.
All rivers flow to the ocean.
Sri ramakrishna quoted by Will durant
Flow and let others flow too.
He who makes a beast of himself
Samuel johnson
gets rid of the pain of being a man.
…The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it
Hunter s. Thompson, Hell’s Angels
because the only people who really know where it is
are the ones who have gone over.
1.) love; 2.) a glorious turn of phrase; 3.) discovery; 4.) walking; 5.) swimming; 6.) stumbling upon an interesting and / or novel idea; 7.) movement; 8.) travel; 9.) street food; 10.) quiet; 11.) health; 12.) recognition that when things are at their very worst, they must get better — because everything is impermanent; 13.) an intense stretch; 14.) Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass;” 15.) undiscovered country; 16.) the hanging moment; 17.) a mystery-laden world; 18.) a moment of flow; 19.) a mountain path; 20.) a clear stream; 21.) the way of non-adversariality; 22.) a thing stripped to its simplest form; 23.) the moment breath turns the tide; 24.) animals being animals; 25.) a brief instant of free fall; 26.) the recognition that something that used to cause me angst or fear no longer does; 27.) when body, movement, and the world fall into alignment; 28.) first contact with someplace / something new; 29.) connection; 30.) the first sign that the struggle is paying off.
Do not make me bring Jeff Goldblum up in here. [No wonder they are still rebooting those movies every two years, people are not getting the message.]
Ma: The Japanese Secret to Contemplation and Calm: An Invitation to Awareness by Ken RodgersList 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1.) Nothing is permanent.
2.) The world is not what it seems.
3.) One’s subjective experience is not determined by the state of the world.
4.) Nobody grasps enough truth to be intolerant.
5.) Uncertainty is the root of all fear.
6.) Fear is the root of all hatred.
7.) Hatred is a subjective experience (See #3.) Also, uncertainty is the root of all hatred (by the transitive property,) hence the benefit of travel.
8.) Any who: a.) has suffered a string of hardships; b.) allows themselves to believe that some “other” is wholly responsible for said hardships; and c.) who lacks a sufficient sense of self-empowerment to avoid surrendering entirely to a group identity can (and likely will) become a Nazi (or the equivalent of their day.)
9.) No one can predict the future. [Regardless of how much we all love to try. (See #5.)]
10.) Entropy increases (ultimately, in a closed system.)
NOTE: I remain ready to abandon any certainty in the face of better information.
Absolutely nothing. I’m more of a mile-wide-inch-deep type than a mile-deep-inch-wide type, which is to say a generalist rather than a specialist. So, I do have some insight into how to think about thinking about matters diverse and sundry.
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
Josh billings
Everything in the universe is a jug
Rumi, Masnavi
filled to the brim with wisdom and beauty.
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert frost
“Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one,
Kahlil gibran
live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.”
Not all those who wander are lost.
J.r.r. Tolkien, The lord of the rings
Tiger Riding for Beginners 