DAILY PHOTO: Gates of Lucknow
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PROMPT: High School
A psychology teacher taught us about what he called “the gestalt of expectations.” It’s when one builds an alternative reality in one’s mind (typically a worst-case scenario) and then one acts as though it is a reality, when – in fact – it is not. (Though sometimes it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy situation, which — of course — triggers selection bias in people of the unexamined life.)
It was my introduction to what I would come to know as the most fundamental insight of human existence — i.e. that one’s experience of the world is not the world itself, and while one has minimal influence over the latter, one can have tremendous influence over the former. One can even train oneself to perceive difficulties and sorrows as learning and growth opportunities.
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“Poetry Is a Destructive Force” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]
That's what misery is,
Nothing to have at heart.
It is to have or nothing.
It is a thing to have,
A lion, an ox in his breast,
To feel it breathing there.
Corazón, stout dog,
Young ox, bow-legged bear,
He tastes its blood, not spit.
He is like a man
In the body of a violent beast.
Its muscles are his own. . .
The lion sleeps in the sun.
Its nose is on its paws.
It can kill a man.
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Liquid Hours [Free Verse]
liquid hours poured forth,
rolling over rock
& into the sea.
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DAILY PHOTO: Stone Art at Ambedkar Gate, Lucknow
Winter Song [Haiku]
dry leaf rattle:
shaken by a steady breeze:
Winter song.
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PROMPT: Positive Change
Daily practice of feeling gratitude. (As opposed to being grateful that one November day a year and wallowing in how horrible everything is the other three-sixty-four.)
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“Crops” by Walter de la Mare [w/ Audio]
Farmer Giles has cut his rye;
Oh my! Oh my!
Farmer Bates has cut his wheat;
Och, the thieving hares in it!
Farmer Turvey's cut his barley;
Ripe and early, ripe and early.
And where day breaks, rousing not,
Farmer Weary's cut his throat.
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Music Mind [Free Verse]
a meandering melody
hijacked my bliss track
and, as I drifted in the void,
my spine straightened,
my breath slowed,
and I tumbled -- for a time --
through eternity.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 