Month: March 2022

The New Pleasure – 11th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

There’s a devil on one shoulder
And an angel on the other
Whispering in opposites
Whether I should even bother
One looks upon this as virtue
The other as if it’s sin
I’ve got to brush them away
If I’m ever to begin

To assume you are below average is to admit you’re still learning. You focus on what you need to improve, not your past accomplishments.

Derek Sivers

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our overabundance of mulberries. I picked a whole bowl yesterday and they’ve only just started (fruiting).

Rocking All Over The World – 10th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Everyone must share the drink, from the poison well
To step back from the brink, falling into hell
When all around are mad, the mad are sane
Non-conformity is bad, let the status quo remain

Inspired by another Khalil Gibran parable.

Do not grow too fond of your ideas or too certain of their truth.

Robert Greene

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to everyone who helped me at the hospital yesterday. It was very smooth and easy.

The Dark Empath – 9th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

He understands me
Says the right words to care
He says he loves me
But hides something not to share
His true intentions
Are on cards held close to chest
He uses my feelings
To ensure he comes out best
He compliments me
Yet somehow his words feel fake
He always points out
My every little mistake
Always a people pleaser
To get everyone on his side
The power rises against me
I have nowhere left to hide
I meet his needs
Through his mental manipulation
And he walks away happy
From every situation
His use of guilt
Always bends toward his will
Once I am discarded
He’ll be doing it still
He uses humour
Everyone laughs at his jokes
But it’s me on the receiving end
Of his vicious little pokes
He whispers lies
In believable words of deceit
His crown never slips
He already has me beat
And it is no irony
I recognise myself in him
That’s how I spotted
The dark empath within

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Franz Kafka

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to not lie in this morning, get up and see a fierce red sun in the sky.

Winning In The Attention Colosseum – 8th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

You got there first
Tweeted it out
Smugly watching
Everyone shout
Follower explosion
You, the reliable source
Never involved
In meaningful intercourse
Keyboard warrior
Promoted to king
Yet an empty bag
Is all that you bring

If people remembered all of the Significant Events they had forgotten in recent years, they would perhaps realise that they were actually not that ‘signicant’ at all.

Mark Manosn

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the rain last night, saving me from watering today and cooling down the night for a good long deep sleep.

Ideal War – 7th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

An ideal war is one where
A third party is found to do your bidding
But the world is wising up
As nations respond with ‘Just who are you kidding?’

The ‘why’ is everything and without it, the very suggestion of human progress becomes a cosmic joke.

David Simon

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the man who sold me 4-stroke engine oil yesterday so that I could use our grass cutter again.

The Week That Was – 15th April 1979

Two Hermits – 6th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

When evil enters the heart
The mind speaks not plainly
But would force charity out of others
When desire was a brotherly fight
The bowl was never divided
And their love remained intact

Another Khalil Gibran parable.

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

Lu Xun

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Nong Gratae who helped me learn a little more Thai and can also help Amy get clients in Australia.

The Curse – 5th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

My body is a time machine
My brain, its brain, it’s enemy
Fighting against itself
Today is another step in time
A footprint in the snow
Disappeared in its melt
Yesterday or nineteen seventy-nine
A heartbeat never remembered
A breath never recalled
The curse of conscious man

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions – as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Stuff The Chicken – 4th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Fixing the world at your barroom tables
Shaking fists at your agreeable fables
It’s simple in your circle of influence
To discount all the unsavoury elements

Warring in nations at your profitable leisure
Prodding the monkies to provide your pleasure
Your war is better than theirs, you beg
Stuffing the chicken back into its egg

9th Jun 2024 – Submitted to Ragtag Daily Prompt – stuff

When you have two choices, choose the more difficult one.

Stoic thought

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for everyone who helped me at the hospital. They made it very easy for me.

Sleepwalking – 3rd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Meeting you, asleep, amongst flowers
I curse you for destroying my youth
You are my enemy, I could kill you
The misty veil cannot hide the truth

And I too, your daughter, sleeping
Wish that you could also be dead
Standing between my freer self and me
My life will not echo all you have said

The cock crows, dew evaporates
Eyes open to the love of daughter and mother
The human condition, the order of nature
There is nothing else to be placed above her

Based on another Khalil Gibran parable

Discovering you were wrong is an update, not a failure, and your worldview is a living document meant to be revised.

Julia Galef

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to find that I can get a booster vaccine at the local hospital this morning. Need to go early and queue up.

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

Mere Man – 2nd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Mother, I am a mere man
I will climb mountains higher than you can understand
To show what a human can do
Tut and scoff, weep and worry
Yet it is something I must do
I will attempt impossible things
Because in the death zone, I come alive
I will be strong
I will leave no brothers behind
You taught me everything
And this is to honour you

Written whilst watching 14 Peaks.

People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life.

Robert Greene

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for this chocolate muesli to break up my normal breakfast eating. What a lot of work must go into making muesli.