“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” – Andre Gide
Oh hello, I’m not cool anymore
I’m not sure that I ever was
I tried my best to be myself
Because, because, because
It’s impossible to be cool at fifty
Forty and thirty too
Cool is just for the kids
I’ll never be as cool as you
The free spirit will be ‘a contradiction of his today.’
Scott Clifton, paraphrasing Nietzsche
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to have contacts all around the world so that I can help people with information.
14th Mar 2022 – I’m not quite certain what, or more likely who, inspired this poem. I had a couple of candidates until I got to the last stanza. I like the wordplay in the last line but don’t think I wrote the poem just to use it!
As for the quote below, I can imagine using this in reference to many people I have met or know but every time I do that with words of wisdom I remind myself that I should be applying this to myself.
It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Epictetus
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for all the delicious smelling flowers and tasty fruit and veg in our garden.
Inspired by Robert Greene’s Daily Laws (March – Mastery)
13th Mar 2023 – I thought this poem had a familiar topic as I had read about this again today. This means I have been reading the Daily Laws for one whole year now. It’s become my habit so I’ll keep going, just as I do with the Daily Stoic, which I have in physical form now and read a page a day in the morning with breakfast.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Theodore Roosevelt
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to Dr Arnon’s staff for taking care of our cats. Tigger reports back in good health. Kim and Cap go next week.
Take it twenty-four hours at a time
Meet your ego with hostility and contempt
Your genius admired far and wide
These laurels appear to rest and tempt
Knowing all the things you don’t know
There’s a lifetime left to fill the gaps
You must learn to find the way
By first learning to read the maps
On solitude: That’s just the kind of ‘suffering’ I’m most at home with.
Elizabeth Bishop
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to find my laptop power adaptor at Le Paradis today. I left it there by accident on Thursday. I’m grateful to the staff who kept it safe for me.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1994ever 