Begin it Now

I was looking for the real words to wonderful Goethe quote today and thought, as always,  that I should have it as a link here.  I don't want this blog to only be a repository of inspirational quotes,  but this is such a fine one,  and true!

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred... Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

Life Lessons learnt...

I quoted this to someone the other day and then thought I would put it up here,  to share with everyone...

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS


by Portia Nelson


I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost ... I am helpless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe I am in the same place

but, it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in ... it's a habit.

my eyes are open

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.


IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.


I love that final line... there is another street (of course it has it's own holes,  but some are easier to avoid than others...)

And speaking of holes in the street,  there is the most amazing chalk art out there!  Julian Beever is a new favorite!

Rules for Being Human

I did a Tarot reading the other day and quoted from this passage, and then wondered if I had got it right and went and looked it up (do love the Internet!) and found it to be as profound as I had remembered.  I thought I would share it with a wider audience - so here it goes:

The Rules for Being Human


1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you. The answer to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.

(Cherie Carter-Scott)

I just love no. 10 - because it is forgotten but lingers,  and once you know it,  you can draw on it again.  Very nice piece,  glad to remind myself of it.

The Bechdel Test for movies

From chocolate to movies...  and now for something completely different:

Watch this youtube clip and see if your favorite films pass the test...

All they need to do to pass is

1. have 2 women in it
2. have those 2 women have names
3. have those 2 women talk to each other - but not about a man. 

Or ask yourself... is there any movie going where there aren't 2 named men talking about something other than women...

Lots of interesting commentary about this (and the other rule - have 2 minorities in it,  talking to each other,  about something other than race..) here

The Chocolate Calculator

Someone sent this to me,  and it's fun and it works and you get to look at pictures of chocolate... what more could you ask for!

YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH

Don't tell me your age - let the Chocolate Witch figure it out...

YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH

This is fun.  DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!  It takes less than a minute ...

Work this out as you read ..

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1760 .   If you haven't, add 1759..

6... Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number

(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).

The next two numbers are

YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)

The Chocolate Witch knows all... except that apparently this is the only year (2010) that this trick will work,  so do it while you can  (and enjoy all the chocolate porn!)

Why are you still carrying her?

Zen Buddhist story of the day:


Two monks are walking from one monastery to another. Along the way they cross paths with a wealthy woman who is rude to them. They meet up with her party again at the river, where she clearly needs assistance to get across. The older monk offers to carry her across the water and at some risk to himself in the swirling waters, he gets her across. She doesn’t even say thank you properly, and leaves. The two monks continue walking for a few more hours until the younger one bursts out ‘how rude that woman was, first she didn’t acknowledge us properly and then she didn’t thank you after you carried her across the waters.’ And the older monk looked at him and replied, ‘I put her down hours ago, why are you still carrying her?’

Ah those elder monks.. always so wise!
 
(I couldn't find an image of a monk wading across a river,  but loved this misty one so included it.  I love how their saffron bright robes contrast with the surroundings)

Thoughts on Change

I was reading somewhere (who knows where, I read so many blogs and magazines and books, I really lose track) Anyways, I read that people’s memory today is appalling compared to those of trained folk in ancient Greek. Then actors, who were not always literate, could recall and declaim verses thousands of lines long. Today, we can barely remember the lyrics to an entire song, but we can find them, with two clicks on our iphone. In Holland, their high school graduates are being tested not on knowledge, but on access. They go into the test with all their computers and gadgets and then are given a topic about which they know nothing, and are timed to research and create a paper/discussion about it. I think that’s what future knowledge is going to be – not memory but access. I look at my son, all of 12, who checks on his phone what rating a restaurant received, and then matches his experience against the Zagat numbers, to see if he agrees or not. No one needs to remember phone numbers any more, we just press contacts and the name pops up. Even with Kindle, (which I just got and love, but more of that another day) my main problem with it is in the recall system – it relies on me remembering a book just by the title - without cover or blurb; and the title is rarely enough for me to remember the book. Sometimes it is, but not a new author, or a series author (I don’t know which Prey book is which, the titles are meaningless to me there.)

 So I think the future is all about knowledge and access. Stories that made sense even 25 years ago, don’t make sense anymore (he moved away so she couldn’t find him.. in today’s world, she could search for 30 mins on google and there he would be) People can aggregate around the weirdest/most poignant issues – read Sufi poets in a Midwestern town of 600? I can find you 600 likeminded friends, only a chat room away. As we become more and more individual in our quirks and needs, we are less and less alone, finding people just like us no matter where we (or they) live.

And I like that. This is change I can live with. You can buy the clothes you like, the books you like, even the food you like (steaks? Marshmallows? And williams Sonoma site will send you the most amazing things) You can find the information you need and the people like you,  and without being limited by geography.