Head-dibs

Where were you on January 1, 1985? It's a far reach back, but that's the date this song was released: "Kyrie" (or in the Greek, Κύριε, from Κύριος) means "Lord," so the phrase means "Lord have mercy." The phrase harkens back to prayers in the 1st Century, A.D.  The song came back to my memory while shopping, as I reflecting on the recent changes in our lives. And the song seemed fitting.  First, I started work last week at a True Value Hardware store. The short version is that I am being groomed to be assistant manager of the that location (in workload, but not in title). Things are moving quickly there. Of course, it's a far cry from what I was doing before, at least I'm working. I lost 6 pound the first week, so that's a thing too.  Second, just before I started my new job, I got a tick bite. I am presently resting and waiting for test results for Lyme disease, although symptoms are now leaning more toward Rocky Mounta...

“ What, then, makes a person free from hindrance and self-determining? For wealth doesn’t, neither does high-office, state or kingdom—rather, something else must be found… in the case of living, it is the knowledge of how to live. ” —Epictetus, Discourses , 4.1.62-64 "You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation that you love. Everything else is a waste of energy and a squandering of your potential. How does one do that? OK, that’s a tougher question. But the philosophy we see from the Stoics makes it simple enough: say no to distractions, to destructive emotions, to outside pressure. Ask yourself: What is it that only I can do? What is the best use of my limited time on this planet? Try to do the right thing when the situation calls for it. Treat other people the way you would hope to be treated. And understand that every small choice and tiny matter is an opportunity to practice these larger principles. That’s it. That’s what goes into t...

“Heraclitus would shed tears whenever he went out in public, Democritus laughed. One saw the whole as a parade of miseries, the other of follies. And so, we should take a lighter view of things and bear them with an easy spirit, for it is more human to laugh at life than to lament it.” (Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 15.2)

1797 to 1828 was all he had. Franz Schubert died young. A student of Antonio Salieri, Schubert became obsessed with music at a young age. Days were long doing little but composing. When he started teaching piano, he was known to stop composing music only to discipline a student who interrupted him. A typical romantic-bohemian, borrowing money, living in other people's homes, he sold his music cheap and spent any earnings drinking and reciting poetry with friends who loved and performed his music ("Schubertians"). Schubert's Symphony No. 8 is known as his "Unvollendete" (Unfinished), as he started the piece in 1822 and only completed the first two movements. As a joke, young music students penned lyrics to the melody found in the cello and echoed by the violins after the first minute or so, "This is the symphony that Schubert wrote but didn't finish;  this is the symphony that Schubert wrote but didn't finish,  th' unfinished symphon...

"He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. Who, then, chooses to live in error? No man. Who chooses to live deceived, liable to mistake, unjust, unrestrained, discontented, mean? No man. Not one then of the bad lives as he wishes; nor is he, then, free. And who chooses to live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, desiring and failing in his desires, attempting to avoid something and falling into it? Not one. Do we then find any of the bad free from sorrow, free from fear, who does not fall into that which he would avoid, and does not obtain that which he wishes? Not one; nor then do we find any bad man free. What, then, is that which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, nor royal power; but some...

"All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way." (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations)

“Of all the people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only they truly live. Not satisfied to merely keep good watch over their own days, they annex every age to their own. All the harvest of the past is added to their store. Only an ingrate would fail to see that these great architects of venerable thoughts were born for us and have designed a way of life for us.” (Seneca, "The Shortness of Life")

“For the New Year . . . everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favorite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,—a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!” (Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900) "Amor Fati" is to love your fate, to say "yes" to life. This does not mean to be a "yes man" to everything that comes along and never say "no" to anything. The idea is that one takes what comes as format...

"Anything that can be prevented, taken away or coerced is not a person's own. But those things that can't be blocked are their own." (Epictetus, Discourses, 3.2.4) Think for a moment about the the things you work so hard for. Think also about someone you may know who works so much harder for something you would consider less, beyond daily living. How many scrape and claw and fight and sweat and grieve over one model of car or piece of electronics? There are some amazing refrigerators out there, some with computers built right into the door. Truth is, like any other refrigerator, it's going to break down. Something is bound to stop working. The only difference between that one and mine is that mine is going to be less expensive to repair. But what is really yours? What do you really own? As it stands, you may have forgotten how some bank somewhere might actually own all your stuff. It's not yours. Yet. The car I've been driving for years will finall...

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” ―Joseph Campbell (1904–1987), Professor of Literature

"Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything." (Epictetus, Enchiridion 21) Stratospheric traces of our transitory flight Trails of condensation held in narrow bands of white The sun is turning black The world is turning gray All the stars fade from the night The oceans drain away Horizon to Horizon memory written on the wind Fading away, like an hourglass, grain by grain Swept away like voices in a hurricane In a vapor trail Atmospheric phases make the transitory last Vaporize the memories that freeze the fading past Silence all the songbirds Stilled by the killing frost Forests burn to ashes Everything is lost Washed away like footprints in the rain In a vapor trail

"Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."   (Epictetus, Enchiridion 8) "The piece evokes the idea that, because we can never know reality beyond the surface, we need to accept the reality as we see it and put on our bravest face. We tell stories and sing songs about the world to try to encapsulate the way we want the world to be. We like stories in which justice prevails, because we can take comfort in that. But in reality there is none of that clarity. There’s no purely sweet child. We don’t like to know it, but even in a sweet child there’s a vicious streak. But such dualities aren’t always negative: behind the oldest eyes is a soul so young. Because the surface appearance of reality is never the full story, the best we can do is accept the way the world is (there’s no magic place), so put on your bravest face and confront reality as it’s given to you. When you are presented with some...

"Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking up a shellfish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep. So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship: lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in time." (Epictetus, Enchiridon 7) TWO DIFFICULTIES: This strange little metaphor tells a story, a parable of sorts. And as with many metaphors and analogies, sometimes they fail, so there are a couple of head-scratching moments as the story unfolds. We won't t...

Seneca wrote, "It’s not in my power how long I will live, but rather how long I will truly exist.” The wisdom offered here is plain: it's not how long one lives, but what one does with the time he or she has that counts. Some people who die at a very old age have hardly lived at all. Some die as slaves, and they don't even know it. Seneca wrote in another place, "I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman . . ." How much time has been lost, frittered away, wasted? There is a difference between rest time and wasted time. We need rest, some measure of distraction, but that's no place to live. Rest is how we recharge for life! I once heard a doctor warn a patient who obviously got laziness confused with living: "get busy living, or get busy dying!" There is no return on wasted time. There is no going back. Time well spent being creative, writing, playing music, ...

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations) I am occasionally met with a greeting that often includes "how's life?" and, as much as I try to have a ready answer, I find myself delving much deeper to a meaningful answer. The best answer I've found is one word: "abundant." Life is full of both good and bad, of both delight and depression, of feasting and famine, of dancing and wrestling. And most often I find there is more wrestling than dancing. Regardless, my answer is summative.  The Emperor is keen to indicate how the skill, the application and expression of existence is more like wrestling than dancing because of the unexpected nature of what is outside our control. He does not say there is no dancing and all life is a battlefield; rather he holds that living well is tough but it is not without rewards. ...

Yesterday's blog post about Anne Frank felt incomplete and it finally occurred to me that I missed an important element. I was so focused on the freedom of writing (journaling, blogging, keeping a diary) that I overlooked another key lesson implied in her quote. Here's what helped me realize my oversight: "Wherever a person can live, there one can also live well; life is also in the demands of court, there too one can live well." (Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.16) The thought came to me that Anne lived where she lived. For two years she had no choice. She could never leave her hiding place in The Secret Annex except in her imagination or on paper. The only people she could talk with were others in hiding as well. If they got along, they got along--but when they didn't, they didn't. So who was left to talk to but her diary? The point is this: " Wherever a person can live, there one can also live well."  Do your part to love and respec...

credit: blogilates "But I have been consigned, so to speak, to one special ailment. I do not know why I should call it by its Greek name; for it is well enough described as “shortness of breath.” Its attack is of very brief duration, like that of a squall at sea; it usually ends within an hour. Who indeed could breathe his last for long? I have passed through all the ills and dangers of the flesh; but nothing seems to me more troublesome than this. And naturally so; for anything else may be called illness; but this is a sort of continued 'last gasp.' Hence physicians call it 'practicing how to die.'” (Seneca, Letter 64) " . . . if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships." (Seneca, Letter 67) Seneca maintains a disarming sense of humor that...

"Beasts avoid the dangers which they see, and when they have escaped them are free from care; but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past. Many of our blessings bring bane to us; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them. The present alone can make no man wretched." (Seneca, Letters, 5 "On The Philosopher's Mean") Our minds are busy. Most of what occupies our minds are out of our control, matters that lie in the past or have yet to occur in the future. If those things were not bothersome enough, we also manage to be distracted by shiny things, with small things that really don't matter, things that keep us from what is most important. Animals have sense enough to flee from harm and man is no animal. So why do we create traps only to knowingly step into them? By focusing on what's already gone or on what has yet to come, we lose the blessings of the present. Worry is th...