Quotes of the week
Sow a thought, and you reap an Act;
Sow an Act, and you reap a Habit;
Sow a Habit, and you reap a Character;
Sow a Character, and you reap a Destiny.
Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904)
Sow an Act, and you reap a Habit;
Sow a Habit, and you reap a Character;
Sow a Character, and you reap a Destiny.
Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904)
It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilised taste.
~Evelyn Waugh
If you have any fault to find with anyone, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back.
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
Meditation of the week
Poem of the Week
And Here You Are
It's such a relief to see the woman you love walk out the door
some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours
of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough
and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and you
are glad, too, that the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it's the pain
in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings nor the general injustice
of the world, no, there is very little that bothers you these days when
you turn, first, to the obituaries, second to the stock market, then,
after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming a good citizen,
you do your morning exercises, count your accumulated blessings,
thank the Lord there's a trolley just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are it is morning you
are alone every little heartbeat is yours to cherish the future is on fire
with nothing but its own kindling and whatever it is that's burning
in its flames isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it.
some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours
of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough
and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and you
are glad, too, that the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it's the pain
in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings nor the general injustice
of the world, no, there is very little that bothers you these days when
you turn, first, to the obituaries, second to the stock market, then,
after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming a good citizen,
you do your morning exercises, count your accumulated blessings,
thank the Lord there's a trolley just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are it is morning you
are alone every little heartbeat is yours to cherish the future is on fire
with nothing but its own kindling and whatever it is that's burning
in its flames isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it.
Author of the week
Later, Pirsig became something of a recluse, turned off by his sudden fame. He said: "In the first week after I wrote Zen I gave maybe 35 [interviews]. I found it very unsettling. I was walking by the post office near home and I thought I could hear voices, including my own. I had a history of mental illness, and I thought: it's happening again. Then I realized it was the radio broadcast of an interview I'd done. At that point I took a camper van up into the mountains and started to write Lila, my second book."
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals was published in 1991, and although it wasn't as successful as his first, it still got rave reviews and spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Those are his only two books.
Best of Craig’s List of the week
(Language alert: the bad language in this post makes it infinitely funnier. But it is bad language for those of you with delicate sensibilities…wait…if you had delicate sensibilities, you wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway, would you…)
Video of the week
Pam and I are going to the Recovery rally in New York next weekend to do research for Delete Me First. Join us on September 12th wherever you are that do in celebrating the recovery from chemical dependency of millions of individuals and the recovery of their families from this disabling health disorder.
Video of last year’s rally can be viewed here
PSA’s are here
For more information visit therecoveryproject.com
Websites of the week
Raise Me Up 4,551,266 views
http://www.rotary.org (I joined Rotary. I felt like I was wearing my father’s clothes!)
INTRODUCTION: AGENDA FOR A GENERATION
We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.
When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people -- these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.
Your weekly Presidential address and much more
Donnie Calloway and Jeremie and Joseph L. King and Astrid (Hey, if you haven’t yet, watch these interviews, they are really neat!)
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
Bon Qui Qui (thanks go out to Shablabla!)
