Tag: book quotes

The Poems of a Ridiculous Man – 7th August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

So here’s the last of my Dostoevsky cool quotes for now, this time from the fantastic The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Despite being quite dark and moody I feel like my poems came out a little more on the positive side – perhaps a reflection on how I was feeling when I wrote the poems compared with when I was inspired by the quotes as I was reading the story.

Acknowledgement to Husker Du and Rob Crow/Heavy Vegetable for some relevant phrases and ideas and, as before, the poems borrow heavily from the text.

Searching for a picture for this post also lead me to finding this hand painted animation of the story.

Ah, it’s so hard to be the only one to know the truth! But they won’t understand it. No, they won’t.

No Truth

Only I know the truth
They sure won’t understand
I carry this burden
It is just as I planned
Truth is in the saying
The truth will set you free
But I will never share
The truth is just for me

Maybe it was the result of the conviction that dawned upon me quite independently of my will that nothing made any difference in this world.

Conviction

I tried and tried and tried and tried
To make a difference before I died
Close to the end a sudden dawning
Independently and without warning
Your time is pointless, meaning, none
A pinprick in millions more to come
So make the best and start believing
Despite the sentence we’re all receiving

…eternally dear to the hearts of her most ungrateful children.

Realm

This earthly realm
Where it all starts
Never ending, eternally
Dear to the hearts
….of her most ungrateful children

We can truly love only with suffering and through suffering. We don’t know how to love otherwise; we don’t know any other love. I want to suffer so that I may love.

Love and Suffering

I wanted it all, wanted it so badly
Staring out of misted windows like a fool
To love this love is to suffer it gladly
Our twisted hearts make us look so cruel
This love, true love, it knows no other way
Crushed and broken hearts not spoken thereof
Life lived without it, not for another day
I must, I want to suffer so that I may love

My hatred for the people of our earth had always contained a feeling of despair – why couldn’t I hate them without loving them?

World of Masochism

My hatred for the people of our earth
Has always contained a feeling of despair
Why couldn’t I hate them without loving them?
Why did I have to care?
Some days I’m just in KEN Mode
A rage of pure hate and seething
Other days I wish for utopia
A paradise full of our dreaming
Which way will it go today?
Which side of the bed did I wake?
Every thought is masochism
No matter which path I take

They grew to appreciate the beauty of untruth…the germ of the lie penetrated their hearts, and they took a fancy to it.

A Good Lie

Sometimes a lie is like a lover
A beauty to be believed
The untruth penetrates the heart
Willingly deceived

…they experienced suffering, and came to love it; they declared that suffering was the only way to Truth. Then science spread among them.

To Suffer

He felt he’d suffered enough
So the Buddhist jumped from the roof
Science says ‘he’s dead’
He thought it the way to truth

Each became so jealous of his individuality that he had to do his best to belittle and humble the individuality of others….

Tall Poppy

You’ve reached the greatest height
Like it’s some crowning achievement
Society brings you down to earth
Where everyone is in agreement

Voluntary slavery in which the weak submitted to the strong of their own free will, if only in order to gain their support to oppress those who were even weaker than themselves.

Shit Trickles Down

Submit to the strong by your own free will
Eat the shit until you’ve had your fill
So you may enslave those below you
Pass on the shit your master throws you
The human centipede, a fitting analogy
A voluntary agreement to this economy
A vicious circle made of 7 billion pieces
The pyramid scheme of human faeces

We’re striving for the same things; we’re all, from the sage to the worst criminal, making our way toward the same objective. Only we’re trying to get there by different roads.

Different Roads

You take the high, I’ll take the low
It’s the same whichever way you go
You take the low, I’ll take the high
Arriving together, just in time to die

Let’s say paradise will never come about! I know myself it won’t – yet I’ll still go on preaching.

Right Turn

Never stop believing
Counter negative traits
Never stop the search
Paradise awaits
It will never come
In your lifetime’s fight
You know what is right
Be doing what is right

Afterword:

Man’s desires are not reasonable and often make him act against his own interest and common sense, but they are what makes him human.

Contradictions

I am respectable, yet not reasonable
My flaws are the things that make me
My desires maybe contradictions
This human interest will not break me

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the daily struggle of thinking of something to write here, without repeating myself. During the day something will pop into my mind to write but when I sit down to do it I struggle to remember. As days are somewhat repetitive at the moment I keep coming up with the same ideas. So anyway, I am grateful that I have this first-world problem.

Poems From Underground – 3rd July 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

This was a mammoth task! Lots of quotes from Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground stuck out to me and I could identify very well with The Underground Man. Finding many of these quotes elsewhere online seems to indicate that many others identify with him too.

Anyway, I decided I’d try to write a poem for each quote as I’d done before. This took a while!

The themes are obviously all very similar, maybe it could’ve been one long poem but that would’ve surely made me more crazy. Words are borrowed and manipulated liberally from the quotes. This was a fun exercise but I’m glad it’s finished. On to the Dreams of a Ridiculous Man!

But I still say that not only too much lucidity, but any amount of it at all is a disease.

Lucid Rivers

When you wake up, ready to go
In search of things you didn’t know
Does this compulsion drive you so
Too obsessive to properly grow
The disease of always learning
Never satisfies your yearning
That desire that’s always burning
Is like a wheel that’s always turning

…as a result of heightened consciousness, a man feels that it’s all right if he’s bad as long as he knows it – as though that were any consolation.

Done Bad

I know the things I’ve done
There surely is no prize
I justified the outcome
As I looked into your eyes

I’m guilty of being more intelligent than all those around me. (I’ve always felt that and, believe me, it’s weighed on my conscience sometimes. All my life, I have never been able to look people straight in the eye – I always feel a need to avert my face.)

Pedestal

Here on this pedestal, I sit
Judging all those below
It’s always been like this
And believe me, I know
When will you learn, I say
As if to deny what’s true
I don’t know who I am
But certain that you are you

….it will hurt itself a hundred times more than it will hurt the one against whom its revenge is directed, who probably won’t even feel enough of an itch to scratch himself.

Bad To Worse

When I took revenge on you
You didn’t feel a thing
Little did I understand
The trouble it would bring
I just wanted to hurt you
Make you feel my pain
Instead things got worse for me
Over and over again

How many times did I convince myself that I was offended, just like that, for no reason at all.

To Take Offence Is To Give Offence

Convinced myself I was offended
Just like that, no reason at all
My reaction less than splendid
Taking home my bat and ball

Where will I find primary reason for action, the justification for it? I exercise my power of reasoning, and in my case, every time I think I have found a primary cause I see another cause that seems to be truly primary, and so on and so forth, indefinitely. This is the very essence of consciousness and thought. It must be another natural law. And what happens in the end? The same thing over again.

Merry

Round and round in circles I go
Looking for the primary cause
It’s never ending, I know
It’s one of nature’s laws

You see, ladies and gentlemen, I have a friend – of course, he’s your friend too, and, in fact, everyone’s friend. When he’s about to do something, this friend explains pompously and in detail how he must act in accordance with the precepts of justice and reason. Moreover, he becomes passionate as he expostulates upon human interests; heaps scorn on the shortsighted fools who don’t know what virtue is or what’s good for them. Then, exactly fifteen minutes later, without any apparent external cause, but prompted by something inside him that is stronger than every consideration of interest, he pirouettes and starts saying exactly the opposite of what he was saying before; that is, he discredits the laws of logic and his own advantage; in short, he attacks everything…

Your Personal Friend

Roll up, roll up, he is everyone’s friend
He is another you
Arguing a point, a message to intend
About what you should do
Fifteen minutes, position is reversed
Opposite now true
Argued both ways, you’re becoming the worst
Split yourself in two
Attack from both sides needing to win
Making others blue
Needle your way under people’s skin
Two faced through and through

….in that future age of reason, there suddenly appeared a gentleman with an ungrateful, or shall we say, retrogressive smirk, who, arms akimbo, would say:
“What do you say, folks, let’s send all this reason to hell, just to get all these logarithm tables out from under our feet and go back to our own stupid ways.”
That isn’t so annoying in itself; what’s bad is that this gentleman would be sure to find followers. That’s the way man is made.

Return

“Deny all reason and follow me
Your system isn’t working
I am the one to set you free”
I whisper quietly, smirking

…a man, always and everywhere, prefers to act in the way he feels like acting and not in the way his reason and interest tell him…

Don’t Do It

Who controls my brain?
I’m not sure it’s me
Don’t think about pink elephants
But that is what I see
I tell myself, don’t do it
And do it anyway
Shoot myself in the foot
Reason has no say

…there is one instance when a man can wish upon himself, in full awareness, something harmful, stupid, and even completely idiotic. He will do it in order to establish his right to wish for the most idiotic things and not to be obliged to have only sensible wishes…it leaves us our most important , most treasured possession: our individuality.

We’re All Individuals

I want to be stupid
It’s my right
Do dangerous things
In the night
I know it’s dumb
But I’m aware
It’s my choice
You don’t need to care

I’m prepared to follow you as soon as you have eradicated my desires, destroyed my ideals, and replaced them by something better.

The Offer

Eradicate my desires
Perhaps I’ll follow you
Destroy my ideals
Would I join your crew?
If you want me to change
Follow you to the letter
You’ll have to show me how
You offer something better

You say you’re longing to live, and you try to solve the problems of life with tangled logic. And you’re so insistent, so arrogant, and at the same time, so afraid.

Tangled Logic

In your arrogance you insist
Don’t fear or resist
Your logic remains tangled
Your thinking quite mishandled
Change the way you live
By what it is you give
You can’t see it made
As long as you’re afraid

There is some truth in you, all right, but there’s no humility; and it is out of the pettiest vanity that you drag forth your truth, to exhibit it, to offer it for sale, to disgrace it. You really have something to say, but you hide your final words, out of fear, because you really have no courage, only the impertinence of a coward. You were bragging about your consciousness, yet you can’t grasp anything clearly because, though your head is quite lucid, your heart is murky as a result of debauchery, and real consciousness is impossible without a pure heart.

Truth For Sale

Do as I say, not as I do
It’s up for sale, what is true
No courage for your conviction
A murky heart, your restriction
Nothing clear in your action
No idea maintaining traction
Your debauchery brings disgrace
And permanently found its place

…there are things, too, that a man won’t dare to admit even to himself, and every decent man has quite an accumulation of such things.

No Freedom

Some things I hate to admit to you
And there’s others I cannot see
I also wouldn’t admit were true
So I’ll hide them deep inside of me

I would like to note here Heine’s remark to the effect that sincere autobiographies are almost impossible and that a man is bound to lie about himself.

Sincere

Every day your autobiography
Is accumulating on your stage
Where you cannot hide behind
Lies you put down on your page

I was twenty-four, but even then I led the gloomy disorganised solitary existence of a recluse. I stayed away from people, avoided even speaking to them, and kept more and more to my hole.

Recluse

A gloomy solitary existence
A rat hiding in it’s hole
Away from the tyranny
Of words that cut my soul

I, of course, loathed and despised everyone in my office, although I was afraid of them at the same time. At times, I even considered them above me.

Sits In His Office

In this office I sit and suffer
Despising those above me
Fools pandering to bosses
Whispering ‘please, love me’
Afraid of failure
And afraid of praise
I wish to be left alone
To quiet office days

I was painfully sensitive and complex, as a man of this age should be. The others, of course, were stupid and resembled one another like a flock of sheep.

No Sheep

Yes, I’m weird about some things
But that’s as they should be
At least I’m no stupid sheep
And learning what I could be

One day I’d refuse to talk to my colleagues at all; then, suddenly I’d be talking their heads off and even seeking their friendship.

Pie Bowler

Today I talk your head off
You just seem bemused
Yesterday I ignored you
No wonder you’re confused
I don’t know why it happens
My brain ain’t balanced well
What you’re gonna get today
Even I cannot tell

I, for instance, sincerely loathed my office work, and if I didn’t spit in anyone’s eye, it was only because I couldn’t afford to – I was paid to sit there.

Sits In His Office II

Another dollar, another day
I spat in no one’s eye
Loathing my self-loathing
Life trudges right on by
If I do not do this thing
I’ll be another useless jerk
So now I race to the office
For another hateful day at work

No, wait, don’t laugh, I can explain – I have an explanation for everything, you may rest assured of that.

Justified Brat

I have an explanation for everything
You may rest assured of that
I’ll justify all my contradictions
Like an ageless teenage brat

How can one ever understand you…with all these noble feelings.

Enigma

Your noble thoughts and feelings
Your enigmatic dealings
Can one ever understand
Life’s journey that you have planned?

I was already grimly wondering at the pettiness of their thoughts, the inanity of their talk, their games and their preoccupations. They couldn’t understand the essential things and were not interested in the most thought-provoking subjects, so I came to consider them as inferiors. …but while I was still dreaming, those boys were grasping the real meaning of life.

Mindtrap

I discounted you in my false superiority
Because I felt I was far above the majority
Your talk and games are inane
Yet the meaning of life they explain
I still lay here, still provoking thought
In this trap I made, I am clearly caught

I hated them violently, although I was probably even worse than they.

In Common

What you did to me
Makes me so mad
And what I do to you
Is just as bad
This violent hate
The same as yours
Exposes us both
To our own flaws

I did make a friend once, but I was already a tyrant at heart and wanted to be the absolute ruler of his mind….It was as though I’d only wanted his total friendship just for the sake of winning it and making him submit to me.

Tyrant Friend

The only way you can be my friend
Is if you submit to my will
Your submission must be total
Tho I will remain a tyrant still
If you break these unspoken rules
You will be castigated
I must be ruler of your mind
Until my ego is placated

I wanted to show the lot of them that I wasn’t the coward I myself thought I was.

Bravado

My true colours as a coward
My bravado comes to hide
I hurt myself to prove to you
There’s more to me inside

That’s bad too – not to think. Wake up and get hold of yourself while there’s still time. Because you do still have time, understand that!

Too Bad

I don’t want to think about it
I just want to drink about it
I try to fix but always doubt it
In my mind is where I shout it
Can I wake up to myself
Whilst there’s time to be had
Try to think my way out
But…ah, well, that’s too bad

…we must first learn to live ourselves before we begin to accuse others!

Jack Hughes

Issuing instructions on correct living
Somewhat insincere, granted misgiving
Accusations undermined in ignorance
Hypocritical, devious denial of intelligence

I didn’t understand that sarcasm is a screen – the last refuge of shy, pure persons against those who rudely and insistently try to break their hearts.

Extreme Screen

I dare not speak of those things I’ve seen
Shy, yet pure, I must raise this screen
My last refuge is not as it may seem
This story plays out as a reoccurring theme
Indirectly, I direct you to where I’ve been
Cry off in the corner as I, smiling, beam
My reaction may be considered extreme
My sarcasm will rudely disturb your dream

Habit can do things to people, I’m sure.

Does

Discipline breeds habit
Habits breed discipline too
Doing things to people’s brains
Doing the do, do do

I’d been insulted, so I wanted to insult back; I’d been made a doormat, so I wanted to show my power and wipe my feet on someone else.

Doormat

You wiped your shoes on me
With your insulting behaviour
I’ll take my shoes to someone else
So they may feel my failure

I can only play with words or dream inside my head; in real life, all I want is for you to vanish into the ground! I need peace.

Vanishing Point

The life I wish for is just a dream
I play out in my head many times a day
I would never stick a real knife in you
Though I need peace – please, just go away

Of course, spinning long yarns about how I poisoned my life through moral disintegration in my musty hole, lack of contact with other men, and spite and vanity is not very interesting.

It’s Not Called a Men-cave

As you can see for yourself
My life is quite ordinary
The tales of my disintegration
They don’t often vary
From my cave I look out
A life so poisoned with spite
Unable to deny my vanity
And unable to make things right

We’ve lost touch to such an extent that we feel a disgust for life as it is really lived and cannot bear to be reminded of it.

Daily Reminder

It annoys me to be reminded of the way you are
Disgusts me so much that I then take things too far
Losing touch with reality, trapped inside this cage
Punishing myself as I’m tortured with this sickly rage

We don’t know ourselves. We would be the ones to suffer if our whimsical wishes were granted.

Whimsical Wishes

Ah, it’s the usual story
Wasted wishes on whimsy
We think we know ourselves
Yet the evidence is flimsy
So that we may suffer
When desires are not earned
Your third wish is for three more
Is something to be learned

…we long to turn ourselves into something hypothetical called the average man.

Mr Average

Poison girls once did tell
That Mr Average did never exist
Yet the desire for exactly that
Is a want we cannot resist

23rd Jun 2024 – Submitted to Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge – below

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to our friends who will come and visit us for lunch today. We can prepare tables, chairs, food and drinks for them all and we’ll have a good time.

Whites in Knight Satin never-ending the reach – 10th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I highlighted these quotes as I was reading, as they struck me for some reason. Now as I sit and reflect on them I sometimes wonder exactly what it was that stood out and if it’s not obvious I guess that the truth I saw in these words is not as deep as I thought. Quotes that remain obvious for their inclusion would seem to highlight a deeper belief I have about the world.

Extracts from White Nights (Dostoyevsky)

…you’re sorry that the ephemeral beauty has faded so rapidly, so irretrievably, that is flashed so deceptively and pointlessly before your eyes – you’re sorry, for you didn’t even have time to fall in love with her…

When I was a teenager or twenty-something I would often look at people in the distance and try to see through their eyes at that moment in time and wonder what they were experiencing in their head. Could I jump, movie-like, from this life experience into a totally new one? Would it be better? Did I feel an urge to escape my own life?

Other times I would see a pretty girl and pretend to fall in love in that moment, hear her breath leave her mouth as I softly kissed her neck, then live a lifetime together in blissful happiness. In an instant these thoughts would disappear back behind other inane thoughts I might have. But, for that brief moment, I lived entire lives.

…moments like this are so rare in my existence that I must repeat them again and again in my thoughts.

These are happy thoughts and memories and as I’ve gotten older I realise they are not as rare as I thought. The more I have been writing and remembering, the big transformative negative events have given way to the smaller transformative positive ones. And as there have been less negative events in the last decade or two I feel like I must be getting somewhere. Repeating thoughts of positive memories must surely have the equal opposite benefit of continued negative ones. This could be a valid use of the word exponential.

…deep down the queer fish really means well.

Just call me ‘the queer fish’.

At any moment, I see more clearly than ever before that I’ve wasted my best years.

Everyone must feel this to some degree. It’s kind of relative. I wish I was as wise as I am now when I was a teenager. I’m envious of those who seem to have a level head at that age, yet also jealous of those crazy mad dogs charging into everything without thought and getting away with it. I consider everything that happened to me has gotten me to where I am now. Ok, I’m not as fit and healthy as when I was a teenager but inside I don’t feel any different, especially when it comes to the possibilities….I feel much more capable now, capable of learning new things and persisting. Though falling off a skateboard aged 40 taught me some things are probably too late to take up.

In the end, you feel that your much-vaunted, inexhaustible fantasy is growing tired, debilitated, exhausted, because you’re bound to grow out of your old ideals; they’re smashed to splinters and turn to dust, and if you have no other life, you have no choice but to keep rebuilding your dreams from the splinters and dust, But the heart longs for something different!

I’m not sure why I specifically highlighted this but it is giving me several ideas. Those ‘much-vaunted inexhaustible fantasies’ smashed; due to maturity, due to change, due to circumstance. I think I’ve been quite flexible in this regard and been able to accept changes and moving on as they happened. ‘Rebuilding your dreams’… is nothing to be afraid of.

I was struck by a passage in Sam McPheeters book ‘Mutations’ where he says he suddenly changed from going to see shows many times a week to not being interested in seeing live music at all – like a switch that went off for him. My circumstances in 2013 suddenly meant that I could no longer afford (or choose to afford) going to shows after about 8 years of being out every weekend. I missed the thrill and the camaraderie, meeting friends, frenzied noise and the joys of working together but ultimately I easily accepted this new situation. Perhaps because I had a higher goal at the time – to move myself to Thailand.

‘Grow out of your ideals’….this, I feel, is something that didn’t change for me. I still carry the same ideals – even useless ones. I am an idealist more than a realist. It’s a source of personal unhappiness but by itself a virtue.

‘But the heart longs for something different’…the grass is always greener. I’m learning now to be satisfied. My brain is not switched off to new ideas and possibilities and I don’t wish to become an old man stuck in his ways but I am learning to relax into a peaceful rhythm of life, sitting in my own comfortable space within a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, in a strange otherworld of a foreign country and in the comfort of my own mind. This is what I wanted, this is what I got, so now I must enjoy the reward.

I know exactly why I highlighted this yet I think I only agree the first clause of this sentence. I have some very vivid memories of certain places that contributed to a great passionate love that sticks with me to this day. It was a very special time that I hope I can put into words one day. I would often revisit those places, searching for that brief passion within me, ultimately knowing that it won’t be found again. I have accepted that and even feel happier without that high, because those kinds of highs were always followed by lows, whether the following week, month, year or decade. I am much more at peace these days. I do still wish I was more mature at the time. I would’ve hurt less people, including myself.

It has been a sad, drizzly day, without relief – just like my future senility. I am oppressed by strange thoughts and dark sensations; throngs of vague questions obsess me, but I have neither the strength nor the desire to cope with them.

“…just like my future senility’ made me chuckle. What about my current senility? Although not this day, I am often oppressed by throngs of vague questions. Some days I love them and others I don’t have the strength for them. On those days I usually accept the situation and watch TV. I am trying to be kind to myself, waiting on my future senility.

…our own unhappiness makes us more sensitive to the unhappiness of others.

I can feel this deeply sometimes and the effort to take other people out of their funk may help my own depression yet the advice I can give others is much more difficult to follow myself. This is a common experience for most people and I have tried to practice talking less and trying to find other ways to pick people up. This is particularly interesting when there’s little point in talking to ESL students or friends as they don’t have the vocabulary to understand anyway. Cultural differences often stand in the way too. I don’t want to come across as being some kind of expert or having the right way but can only try to offer suggestions.

Tell me, why aren’t we all like brothers? Why does even the best person hold something from another?

What a crazy world it would be if we never held anything back. All truths were told. There must be science fiction stories about this. A utopia or a place where humans completely destroyed each other? This concept is too huge for my tiny little brain right now. Is it even worth thinking about?

Naval Ravikant suggested that asking the question ‘what is the meaning of life’ is pointless, at least in the purpose of producing an answer, but the process of trying to answer the question will still provide worthwhile results.

…we won’t resent for long a wound inflicted by those we love..

I’m reminded of a recent time when a friend offered me advice along with the statement that “I’m only saying this because I love and care about you.” I forget what the advice was now but considered this statement. I took it at face value at the time though also felt a little strange about it – what was the real purpose of the statement?

A few months later and for one reason or another I had done something to upset this friend and now they no longer talk with me. Of course, I could have behaved better though it’s not exactly clear to me what it was that triggered this change in friendship status. Then I thought back to this statement and I realised that it was said without sincerity. It was said just to make them feel good.

Now, that’s ok. Because I’m sure I do this all the time. But I try not to. I want to be completely sincere (or obviously insincere – that’s the English in me again!). I would be a terrible poker player – I cannot hide my feelings on my face and I don’t care to learn.

As to those I love, all wounds are forgiven but I also don’t spread my love so deep and far. Maybe I should. But I’m afraid. What am I really afraid of?

Now I’m getting to vague questions that I may not have the strength to contemplate.

Brain dump

Take it easy. No need to push real hard, just do something – every little bit helps.

You are a student and a teacher. Clearer mind this morning – not so much in it.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my calm mind this morning. I had a good sleep and woke up with not so many thoughts rattling around and I think it is because I am not teaching proper classes at the moment so I have taken the internal pressure off. I hope I can achieve this state more often when I am teaching normally. Got to balance my care.

Could not wait to get wired for sound – 7th January 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Things to be grateful for in this school:
– I have a printer!
– There is aircon and fans.
– There are enough resources for my teaching.
– I have a lot of spare time.
– The keen students make me happy.
– I have a desk, electricity, chair, water, board and markers, TV and computer.
– I understand what I need to do.
– It’s easy to get to work.
– My co-teacher is helpful and nice.
– The other teachers are nice.
– There’s no real gossip or if there is, I don’t hear about it.
– I have good classes of kids.
– There is toilet paper!
– I’m learning to think whilst surrounded by noise.
– I’m practising patience every day.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the ease with which I can talk with my son, something that was much more difficult when I moved away from my mum. I am so happy and grateful that I was able to afford technology when I wanted it and invested in expensive and long-lasting equipment.

From commonplace book

He had been not so much horrified by death as by life with the slightest knowledge of its origin, its purpose, its reason and its nature.

Levin, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolsoy, pg 904

To-do list

  • Get new passport photos. ✅
  • Start thinking about work permit requirements. ✅
  • Practice gratitude about the school.
  • Think, then speak. Do not complain. You will be surrounded by complainers. ✅
  • Write to Jochen. ✅

After attending a meeting in the morning, for a 4-day English ‘camp’ (not sure why they use this word) I was thinking a lot of negative thoughts. There was nothing particularly wrong about the items of the meeting but just the whole lack of coordinated planning got into my head. It affects the Thai teachers too as they are unable to answer our questions.

I kept my mouth shut as much as possible and started to feel complete disinterest in teaching in these schools. I even started to question my enthusiasm for teaching at home too. Thailand is getting to me a little bit.

I soldiered on and late in the day Kru Noon confided quite a lot of her doubts about the school. I used that opportunity to be quiet and she talked and talked. She had a lot of useful information though nothing particularly positive for the future at that school. So with all that, I don’t think I did practice any gratitude about the school today. Only having two lessons was a joy at least.

Amy and I both went to the track to walk/run after I got home. It’s tough to motivate yourself so I’m hoping to tie this habit with getting home from work and going for exercise. I feel pretty good at the moment (physically) and able to lose a bit of weight and keep it off. I pushed up squats to 40 and will stick with that for a week or two.

My self-control was mostly tested in that morning meeting and I think I did well and was able to tell myself ‘Shut up, don’t say anything’. Tomorrow I would like to continue this thinking before speaking practice, especially before saying anything negative. I think I caught myself a couple of times today and quickly tried to stop talking or change the subject