Only the Blessed of Lethe's dews
May stoop to drink. And yet,
Were their Elysium mine to lose,
Could I, sans all repining, choose
Life's sorrows to forget?
“Lethe” by Walter de la Mare [w/ Audio]
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Category Archives: Philosophy
Let it Float [Lyric Poem]
Sans fear of dying,
The angst of trying
Is felt and left
To float.
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“Water” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]
The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.
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PROMPT: Favorite People
People who take nothing seriously. A distant second goes to those who take everything seriously. And dead last, being people I avoid at all costs, are those who have a sizable set of ideas that they believe should be treated deadly seriously by everyone, while finding others’ serious stuff to be mockable.
Einstein said there are two ways of viewing the world, as if everything is a miracle or nothing is. I’m sure Einstein recognized that there were many people who, in fact, believed their own sect to have “legitimate miracles,” while believing the miracles of other sects were mere superstition. And what he was really getting at was that the latter stance is presumptuous, indefensible, and – quite frankly – ridiculous. Anyhow, my own spin is that there are two legitimate ways to view the world: to take nothing serious and to take everything seriously. All others are shades of petty narcissism.
[As I think of it, I guess I could have answered more simply with the single word: “Travelers.”]
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“Worldly Place” by Matthew Arnold [w/ Audio]
Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
And drudge under some foolish master's
ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen --
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?
Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever
came;
And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour
here!
The aids to noble life are all within."
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PROMPT: Budgeting
Write about your approach to budgeting.
Don’t want much. Don’t need much. And hope for the best.
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“The Lilly” by William Blake [w/ Audio]
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble Sheep a threat’ning horn;
While the Lilly white shall in Love delight,
Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.
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Quest [Lyric Poem]
Is it every person's dream
To be what one is,
And not what one seems?
Or would one rather be
The creature of one's dreams --
Who no one ever sees?
Or should one be the best
Of real and imagined:
The host and the guest?
How much of who we are
Is the views of others
And how much is ours?
(And is any of it
Written in the stars?)
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Flower Mind [Free Verse]
Morning Glories
don’t feel slighted
because they bloomed
in the shadow of
Mexican Sunflowers…
Though the humans
who otherwise might
stop to admire them
can now not be
bothered to notice them.
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PROMPT: Power
Daily writing prompt
If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?
That no individual would have the power to unilaterally change any law.
Because if we all had the power to change one law it would be chaos, like in “Bruce Almighty.”
Tiger Riding for Beginners 