HEAD(hed), (n.) 1. the top part of the human body or the front part of an animal where the eyes, nose, east and mouth are. "Your brain is in your head." DIBS(dibz), (n.) 2. a thick, sweet syrup made in countries of the East, especially the Middle East, from grape juice or dates. [Arabic "debs"]--World Book Dictionary, 1976.
“It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and left the quiet earth alone with the stars. It seemed as if, in the silence and the hush, while we her children slept, they were talking with her, their sister — conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and deep for childish human ears to catch the sound. They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear. We are as children whose small feet have strayed into some dim-lit temple of the god they have been taught to worship but know not; and, standing where the echoing dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light, glance up, half hoping, half afraid to see some awful vision hovering there. And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In its great presence, our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays ...
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Currently Reading: "Walden And Civil Disobedience"
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I'm at the point in my life where I could be happy with a small armload of books. When I survey the blocks of paper occupying my shelves, I am grateful for the minds who share their thoughts in them, but it's a crowd of voices. I'd like to surround myself with a few great men who have great things to say--the kind of men who would pull a knife from their pocket, slice off a chunk of apple and ruminate with horse-sense on things that really matter.
I am spending some time with an old friend I've not visited in well over 30 years. I'm out on a pond outside Concord, Massachusetts. You might know the place, on the way to Boston. You might know my friend, the anarchist Henry David Thoreau.
Giving the Stoics a break, I'm reading Thoreau's "Walden And Civil Disobedience" with pencil in hand. No agenda. Just visiting. Just one book from the pile I'd rescue from a fire or wouldn't mind being stranded with. (I carry three in my backpack at all times: this book, Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" and Seneca's Moral Letters).
He's a man who delivers. I've already noted some passages I might share in days to come, such as the following that harmonizes nicely with my Stoic theme of the month:
"But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before." (Thoreau, Walden, "Economy")
I can't help but wonder if Pink Floyd had this book in mind, because as I read his first chapter on "Economy" and he speaks of men who are born on their land, eat the fruit of their own dirt only to die and compost the same land, I hear the following song:
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things." (Thoreau, Walden, "Economy")
And there it is: wisdom does not do desperate things.
“Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?” EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.3.6 b –8
Legend has it that the astronomer Ptolemy (1st century A.D.) suggested that falling stars were caused by the gods moving in the heavens, thus knocking stars out of their places. Somehow people reasoned that that if the gods were moving, they must be getting close to earth so they would lift their "prayers" or "wishes" (literally, "desires") whenever they saw the stars falling in hopes the gods would notice and grant a favorable answer. But how does one wish on falling star? Once you see it, it's gone before the wish or prayer can be made! The answer is simple: meteor shower. That's how to get your wish. Mrs. Ann Hodges had a wish fall right into her lap. Sort of. In 1954 Mrs. Hodges was sleeping on the couch when a 8 1/2 pound meteorite fell through her house and into her living room where it bounced off the radio and struck her left hip leaving her with a bruise. Not sure what she was wishing, but that's not how to do it. Epictetus hel...
