...a man who's willing to make a decision in the first place can always make another one to correct any mistake he's made. ~Harry S. Truman
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. ~John Nuveen
A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.~Michael Pollan, author, journalism
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Meditation of the week
In wildness is the preservation of the world. - Henry David Thoreau Nature confronts us with its beauty in a flower or a furry animal. The awesomeness of nature is in a lightning bolt or a majestic mountain. Every variety of tree has its own uniquely textured bark. Each annual ring in a tree trunk is a natural record of the growing conditions in each year it grew. These things remind us we are not in charge, and we are moved by the experience. This "wildness" is everywhere around us, and we are renewed by it when we interact with it. At night, in the city, we look up and see the ancient moon. When we live with a pet, it reminds us we are creatures too. We are part of this larger whole. We don't just appreciate nature -- we are nature. When we open our eyes and learn to be a part of it, it renews and lifts our spirits. Today, I will notice my relationship with the sun and moon, with the plants and animals in my world.
I sat between Mamma and Daddy.
My sister sat on Mamma's lap.
Daddy drove. Fields, telephone poles....
I watched the sun go down.
"Never look straight at the sun,
it could ruin your eyes."
No matter how far you drive
you can't get to the sun.
I touched the pearly knob
of the gearshift lever
and felt the vibration in my fingers.
It made Daddy nervous.
'Never mess around with that.
You could ruin the car,
cause an accident."
It was dark, the sun gone to China.
Out there in the dark,
fourteen lights. I counted. Fourteen.
Rabbits ran in front of the car
from one black ditch to the other.
I didn't know where we were.
I could see the red light on the dashboard
and the light of Daddy's Lucky Strike
that broke into a million sparks behind us
when he threw it out the window.
"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians." SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, on a visit to Mexico.
Naked I seek the camp of those who desire nothing.
~Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Carmina (bk. III, 16, 22)~
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of the pleasures costs nothing and conveys much. It pleases him who gives and him who receives, and thus, like mercy, it is twice blessed. Erastus Wiman
"Washington is all in a tizzy over who’s at fault. Some say it’s the Democrats’ fault, the Republicans’ fault. Listen, I’ll take responsibility, I’m the president." PRESIDENT OBAMA, over executive bonuses at the American International Group.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.~Oscar Wilde
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.~Unknown
Meditation of the week
Moving Forward
Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don't have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don't need to suffer with them.
It doesn't help.
It doesn't help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.
Changing ourselves, allowing ourselves to grow while others seek their own path, is how we have the most beneficial impact on people we love. We're accountable for ourselves. They're accountable for themselves. We let them go, and let ourselves grow.
Today, I will affirm that it is my right to grow and change, even though someone I love may not be growing and changing alongside me.
The fall of the Athenian empire, in which a law professor supposedly give facts about the 2008 election. This started in 2000, was repeated in 2004 and here it is again. If you care about your country, hit delete when this hits your inbox. Thanks Rob
Be vigilant; guard your mind against negative thoughts. Pull yourself out of bad ways as an elephant raises itself out of the mud.
~Eknath Easwaran
Do not die of another's misery. Beware of him who is stuck in the mud, and note that he calls to you, to be comforted by your mutual unhappiness. These men are on the hunt for those who will help them carry their misfortune: and of those to whom in their prosperity they gave the cold shoulder, they today ask the hand. Great coolness is necessary with the drowning, if you would bring them help without peril to yourself. (For counselors everywhere)
Baltasar Gracian
I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can tell good from bad. But I also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are those we have to make between bad and worse.
"Fear no more the heat o' the sun, nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou, thy worldly task hast done,
home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
to thee, the reed is as the oak.
The scepter, learning, physic,
must all follow this,
and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash, nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
fear not slander,
censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd,
joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exerciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
and renowned it be thy grave."
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office
--Aesop (~550 BC)
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
--Plato
First secure an independent income, then practice virtue.
--Greek Proverb
There's nothing certain in man's life except this: That he must lose it.
--Aeschylus
What you get by reaching your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by reaching them.
Meditation of the week
Battles we've won or lost
Even the continuous recovery we're enjoying is no shield from traps we seem to set for ourselves. At times, we can find ourselves in the foolish game of continuing to fight battles we've won or lost.
One losing battle is the attempt to win the approval of someone who has always disliked us. That person may be gone, but we still fight - and lose - the same battle when we find ourselves in a similar situation.
We also may have won some battles without knowing it. This can happen when we've set our goals unrealistically high. We may be fairly successful in our work, for example, but still feel that we have failed because a high goal we set eluded us. That goal, however, may have been all but impossible to attain, and while we mourn our perceived failure, we ignore the successes we may have achieved in the meantime. Consequently, we should never let any of these battles interfere with our plan for sobriety. We must stay sober at all costs.
This day, I'll not strive to impress people who may always disapprove of me. I will also accept my successes even if they fall short of my highest dreams.
I love the way men crack
open when their wives leave them,
their sheaths curling back like the split
shells of roasted chestnuts, exposing
the sweet creamy meat. They call you
and unburden their hearts the way a woman
takes off her jewels, the heavy
pendant earrings, the stiff lace gown and corset,
and slips into a loose kimono.
It's like you've both had a couple shots
of really good scotch and snow is falling
in the cone of light under the street lamp—
large slow flakes that float down in the amber glow.
They tell you all the pain pressed into their flat chests,
their disappointed penises, their empty hands.
As they sift through the betrayals and regrets,
their shocked realization of how hard they tried,
the way they shouldered the yoke
with such stupid good faith—
they grow younger and younger. They cry
with the unselfconciousness of children.
When they hug you, they cling.
Like someone who's needed glasses for a long time—
and finally got them-they look around
just for the pleasure of it: the detail,
the sharp edges of what the world has to offer.
Then a year goes by. Or two.
Like broken bones, they knit back together.
They grow like grass and bushes and trees
after a forest fire, covering the seared earth.
They landscape the whole thing, plant like mad
and spend every weekend watering and weeding.
Author of the week
It's the birthday of the novelist Khaled Hosseini, (books by this author) born in Kabul, Afghanistan (1965). His first novel, The Kite Runner (2003), was a word-of-mouth best-seller, and it's now sold more than 8 million copies.
Hosseini was the son of an Afghani diplomat. His family moved to Paris, and one night they turned on the TV during dinner and saw Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan. Hosseini's father applied for political asylum in the United States, and the family moved to San Jose, California, in 1980.
In Afghanistan, Hosseini's family had been wealthy and respected, and he'd grown up surrounded by servants. But in San Jose, they survived on welfare and food stamps. The only job his father could find was working as a driving instructor.
Hosseini wanted to be a writer, but he realized that he needed a more practical profession. So he went to medical school, and it was 10 years before he had time to start writing again. He would get up at 4 a.m. and write for two hours every morning before he went to the hospital. Even though Hosseini's family knew many people in Afghanistan who had been killed or imprisoned under Soviet or Taliban rule, his memories of Afghanistan were all pleasant. Whenever he thought about his childhood, he remembered flying kites over the city in an annual competition.
He wrote a story about one of these kite competitions, and his father encouraged him to expand it. He did, and that story became The Kite Runner.
Just before The Kite Runner was published, Hosseini took his first trip back to Afghanistan in 27 years. The neighborhood where he had grown up was full of collapsed buildings, piles of rubble and bullet-scarred walls.
In 2007, he published another big best-seller, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The novel begins in 1975 and continues to the present time. It tells the story of two women in Kabul who are both wives of the same cruel man.
The darkest hour of a man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
~Horace Greeley
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
~Will Rogers
Hold an image of the life you want,
And that image will become fact
~Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Meditation of the week
Little Johnny is always being teased by the other neighborhood boys for being stupid. Their favorite joke is to offer Johnny his choice between a nickel and a dime -- Little Johnny always takes the nickel.
One day, after Johnny takes the nickel, a neighbor man takes him aside and says, "Johnny, those boys are making fun of you. Don't you know that a dime is worth more than a nickel, even though the nickel's bigger?"
Johnny grins and says, "Well, if I took the dime, they'd stop doing it, and so far I've made $20!"
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and
over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the
light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs—
all this resinous, unretractable earth.
Song of the week
Who would ever think to cover a Beatles song with a slide guitar and a banjo?
And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.
And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.
I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.
You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.
