A dictionary resembles the world more than a novel does, because the world is not a coherent series of actions but a constellation of things perceived.
Edouard Levé
...one thing I’ve learned from being called for jury duty is that, as long as I answer questions honestly, there’s no chance whatsoever I’ll ever be picked...the truth, you might say, sets me free...
...have never been one of those desperately unhappy people who wear all black and write poems about suicide...nor one of those desperately unhappy people with big toothy smiles constantly trying to buttress themselves with feel-good notions they can't actually force themselves to believe...though I’ve danced insecurely on the margins of both...
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
Eric Hoffer
...a friend was leading a therapy group for mentally ill ex-con drug addicts....one day, a caseworker was talking with a client and had to leave the room...finding, upon returning, that both the client and her lap-top were gone....though the guy came back the next day, to what I imagine was as therapeutic a grilling about what happened to the lap-top as possible...it’s at a crack house, he said, but I can get it back for $20...not surprisingly, the staff was dubious...but given the value of the computer, not to mention all the classified files on its hard drive, twenty bucks really wasn’t much to gamble on the faint possibility of getting it back...so, they gave it to him, and, some time later, he came back, lap-top in hand...leaving my friend and me really impressed by what was apparently a very professionally and ethically-run crack house....making me wonder: can fair trade organic crack co-ops be next?...
...any time a student started asking a question beginning with do we have to...?, I’d interrupt, say no, of course not...they’d say really?...and I’d say you’re in college; you don’t have to do anything...I can’t send you to the principal’s office, can’t give you a detention, can’t call your parents, really can’t do anything to you; what you do or don't do is up to you....except the grade, they'd say...and I'd reply but that’s just a description of what you decided you felt like doing...in shorthand...like a haiku...but even shorter...
...the difference between self-pity and self-compassion is, I think, that the first is only marginally different from cruelty...a distinction merely in terms of the tone of voice with which we call ourselves pathetic...while the latter is more likely to give a soothing back rub before saying, in a loving tone, that it’s time to get up off your ass...
7 comments:
I liked the bit about grades...a haiku of one letter, maybe with a qualifying symbol. Short. Sweet. And completely evocative.
B+
I have to get off my ass I don't own a chair strong enough to hold that rather prodigious appendage for long and standing up from a sitting position is easier than picking myself off the floor.
I'd say it's all about yoga; I see a little ahimsa (non-harming), some sayta (truth), a pinch of asteya (non-stealing), and peppered with lessons of vairagya (non-attachment).
When isn't life about yoga, even when it isn't called yoga?
All about the perception!
I never tried yoga but I have heard so much about it. Most of my friends that enroll into yoga said that it's very good form of exercise.
Also, I like your comparison between self-pity and self-compassion.
Nice post. Lisa from Beginner Free Guitar Lessons
I've never tried yoga, it can make the mind becomes more focused. other said some say that's tiring to hold your breath.
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