“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, t
“The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
“Being overpowered by the sadness of not knowing what there is in the world, and what I’m doing. Feeling completely indifferent to good and evil too, to beauty or anything else. I know that this is the root of all human troubles, all of them.”
— Jack Kerouac, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947 - 1954
You know what I love, love, love about the world? No matter how educated one is - from the most learned, decorated person to the poorest wise man to the simplest person - no one really knows the great mysteries of life: What happens after we die? Do we live again? No one truly knows and that’s the magnificent beauty of life, I think.
Life is very mysterious. Answers are few. Beautiful.
In other cultures, particularly East Asian ones, the idea of reincarnation is a given.
For you, here, is a story from the NY Times on past lives.
- xo.
Y’all,
Lately I’m psyched because I have a very cool pen-friend from Germany. As a teen - picture a slightly less-driven Max Fischer - I’ve always been stuck with less enthused (read: boring) pen pals. But this one is a professional opera singer and very cool. If you’re jonesing for a pen-pal, a great place to find one is the Letter Writers Alliance (LWA). Chances are that at LWA you’ll meet like-minded folk and not some perve with chest hair and gold chains. Give it a try.
It’s early “awards season”, as people in The Biz say, and two of my childhood friends are making their respective marks. One is writing for the Oscars and the other just won a Golden Globe and Emmy for his turn in “Game of Thrones”. (I should really read that.) Right now, I’m reading “Complications” by Atul Gawande. It is well-written enough that even if you’re squeamish about anything medical you’ll still keep reading.
Best to you.
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and 3rd President, kindly gives advice to a young boy.
It’s only 11 pm, early by night owl standards. I don’t really suffer from insomnia as much as I might “suffer” from just enjoying staying up late. (Check out the Boomtown Rats*’ song on this very affliction…)
Happy up-staying.
*This is early Bob Geldof, before the Live Aid concerts and all that.
Chicago was so gritty, especially in the summertime, that every once in a while I’d gaze up at some random object, like the side of a lamppost and see a sticker telling me that I was beautiful. I got such a kick out of the Beautiful Movement there that I nicked a sticker for myself. Sometimes, I’ve learned from places like Post Secret, seeing this anonymous feeling, this statement, makes an otherwise dreary day seem more possible. It’s true. It made me smile.
I just adore Post Secret, an art collective of people sending in their secrets - some funny, some weird, some sad and some horrifying, to name but a few of the emotions - that I’ve wondered what I’d send in if I did send in a secret. Hm. Then I worried that I didn’t actually have any secrets or any worth sending in! (!) Hm.
I’ve rented “Tree of Life” from iTunes to be watched within 20 days from now or so. I do like Terence Malick and his ability to cadge mystery in an age where very little is secret. Apparently, there are very few, if any photos of the reclusive director online or anywhere. Interesting.
Living in such a small town causes me to live in my head much of the time. I don’t know, man. That might not be such a great idea. Look at how well this worked out for Ted Kaczinski.
