Its Happening

-
Image
  I’ve been spending the last few months on something I’ve always wanted to do: write a book. I’m using every possible moment on this project and it’s really coming along. I am currently 7 chapters completed out of a potential 20.  However, given the source material, each chapter is just a little bit longer than the previous. So who knows when I’ll be finished. I’m learning so much tho! 

Seneca, Moral Letter 28, “On Travel as a Cure for Discontent”

-

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.


“Socrates . . . said: ‘Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.’ What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you. . . . 

That trouble once removed, all change of scene will become pleasant . . . The person you are matters more than the place to which you go. . . To live well is found everywhere. . . (Seneca, Moral Letter 28, “On Travel as a Cure for Discontent”)

Popular posts from this blog

"On Keeping A Notebook" by Joan Didion

-
Image
I'm nearly finished reading Joan Didion's collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.  The book was discovered through another book I was reading, Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams . If Jon felt this book was good enough to pack along on a mountain climbing expedition, then I'm interested. Took me three tries, but I finally found my copy on Amazon. One of the best book buys I've made. Joan selected the title of this book from William Butler Yeats' classic poem, Second Coming . The book title is shared with one of her larger essays, a record of encounters with people in the 1960's drug culture. Didion's book is divided into three distinct parts: "Life Styles In The Golden Land," a collection of articles capturing the California experience of the 1960's; "Personals," a few of essays of the first-hand nature; and "Seven Places Of The Mind", some thoughts about those parts of California that are now long gone. One essay...
Read more

“And so, about this tomb of mine . . . “

-
Image
  “VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!  Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?  Nephews—sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well—  She, men would have to be your mother once,  Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!  What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,  Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,  And as she died so must we die ourselves,  And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.  Life, how and what is it?  As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,  Hours and long hours in the dead night,  I ask “Do I live, am I dead?”  Peace, peace seems all.  Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;  And so, about this tomb of mine.  I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:  —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;  Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner  South He graced his carrion with,  God curse the same!  Yet still my niche is not so cramped...
Read more