Aloneness - Audrey Hepburn

"I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel."

~ Audrey Hepburn

no help for that / Charles Bukowski

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

and

we will wait
and
wait

in that
space.

~ You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, 1986

"What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?"

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?"

This was his answer





"To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour."
William Blake

"We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
~ Carl Sagan

We do not know our own souls

You ever have one of those moments when there's a quote in your head, and you don't know where to find it. But you can't sleep until you find it? Well, this is one of those moments, but thankfully I still have the book where I first found it. From Virginia Woolf, "The Moment" and Other Essays:

"We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable. But in health the genial pretence must be kept up, and the effort renewed -- to communicate, to civilise, to share, to cultivate the desert, to educate the native, to work together by day and by night to sport. In illness thus make-believe ceases."

I do not know why I was suddenly so obsessed with finding this quote. I know that it has been a while since I have written anything on this blog. However, something major came to a close recently, and while there is great sadness, there is also a sense of relief, like a chapter has been closed somehow.

So the question remains: What now?

It is now time for reflection. I need silence and solitude.

Awakening

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”

~ Anais Nin

Quote

Source: vi.sualize.us via Aly on Pinterest

The suffering was the path

We should look at our suffering in such a way that the suffering can become a positive thing. Of course you have made some mistakes. You have been unskillful. All of us are the same. We always make mistakes. We are very often unskillful. But that does not prevent us from improving, from beginning anew, from transforming. The Buddha said that if you have not suffered, there is no way you can learn. If the Buddha has arrived at full enlightenment, that is just because he had suffered a lot. The suffering was the path that helped him to arrive at full enlightenment, at full compassion, at full understanding.

-Thich Nhat Hanh--

One of my favourite scene from "Eat, Pray, Love"

It spoke to me during a moment of my life. That it's possible to be hurting, and still allow love.

Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama

Ask The Dalai Lama a Question
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
Follow the three R’s:
- Respect for self,
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions.
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
Spend some time alone every day.
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
Be gentle with the earth.
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

SPOKEN WORD | Leonard Cohen's A Thousand Kisses Deep

Don’t matter if the road is long
Don’t matter if it’s steep
Don’t matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don’t matter if we lose our way
It’s written that we’ll meet
At least, that’s what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see, I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
You learned it on your father’s knee
And at your mother’s feet
But did you have to fight your way
Across the burning street
When all our vital interests lay
A thousand kisses deep

I’m turning tricks
I’m getting fixed
I’m back on boogie street
I’d like to quit the business
But I’m in it, so to speak
The thought of you is peaceful
And the file on you complete
Except what I forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep

Don’t matter if you’re rich and strong
Don’t matter if you’re weak
Don’t matter if you write a song
The nightingales repeat
Don’t matter if it’s nine to five
Or timeless and unique
You ditch your life to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run
The girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while, and then it’s done
Your little winning streak
And summon now to deal with your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses deep

I hear their voices in the wine
That sometimes did me seek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
But the heart will not retreat
There’s no forsaking what you love
No existential leap
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

RECORDS FOR 2011

Books Read 2011

1. My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore's Bilingual Journey • Lee Kuan Yew
2. The May 13 Generation: The Chinese Middle Schools Student Movement and Singapore Politics in the 1950s • Edited by Tan Jing Quee,Tan Kok Chiang & Hong Lysa
3. Chinese Schools in British Malaya: Policies and Politics • Lee Ting Hui
4. Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior • Chögyam Trungpa
5. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times • Pema Chodron
6. Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears • Pema Chodron
7. 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life • John Kralik
8. The Wisdom of No Escape • Pema Chodron
9. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are • Brene Brown
10. When Things Fall Apart • Pema Chodron
11. The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation • Thich Nhat Hanh
12. The Little Prince • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
13. Shah of Shahs • Ryszard Kapuściński [translated from the Polish by William R. Brand & Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand]
14. Opening the Door of Your Heart and other Buddhist Tales of Happiness • Ajahn Brahm
15. Let the Right One In • John Ajvide Lindqvist [translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg]
16. Outliers: The Story of Success • Malcolm Gladwell

Robert Massie's Catherine the Great and How He Came to the Russian Royalties

NPR featured a story on the biography of Catherine the Great, written by Robert Massie. link

Catherine the Great was a fascinating character. A teenager who was married off to an eccentric Czar, Peter III. Her husband was uninterested in her, and she was under constant pressure to bear the heir to the Russian throne. Bored and unhappy, Catherine read. And read. And read.

"She had been a bright child; her languages then were French and German, [and] she learned Russian," Massie says. "She began to read the great philosophers of the French Enlightenment. And in that way, she developed a philosophy of rule."

What caught my attention however, as this little anecdote about how Robert Massie came to be interested in the Russian royalties:

"My first child, my son Bob Jr., was born with hemophilia ... a genetic disease. We didn't know where this had come from; we knew nothing about this. This was 50 years ago.

"I knew a little, not much, about the most famous hemophiliac, the son of Nicholas II, the last czar. I started going down to the New York Public Library on my lunch hour and reading what I could find. I learned a lot about Russia. ... We went to Russia and I learned the Russian language to some degree, and I wanted to keep going."

Sometimes, you just don't know. Something happens. A thought led you to a path. You just followed it logically, until it led to someplace you never really expected.

Mona Simpson's eulogy for Steve Jobs

[ link ]

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Murakami | "You got to pick the notes you really mean"

One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

~ From Jazz Messenger, essay by Haruki Murakami

Creativity is Just Connecting Things

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

~ Steve Jobs from 1996 Wired magazine

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Creating a Mindful Library

Book list for those interested in learning more about mindfulness:

http://www.mindful.org/Books/creating-a-mindful-library

Bookselling Is Harder than It Looks

My former director just posted this article from Fresh Eyes Now, the Shelf Awareness Newsletter. As a former bookseller, it made me smile. It's like a private joke that only those who have been there, who share the same pain (and laughter) will understand.

All over the world, booksellers greet them courteously, ask how they are. Perhaps no one has asked them that question all day, not even their families. They say "fine" in the language of the land because, quite suddenly, at this moment and in these special places, they are fine. There are empty chairs in quiet corners. Maybe they will just sit and read for a little while... in paradise.

Ten minutes later, they glance up from their reading to watch booksellers shelve a few novels. It's a beautiful, universal and almost ceremonial tableau. They think about the jobs they must return to when this break is over, the bosses who are mad at them for no reason, co-workers who are driving them crazy and the mountains of work piling up incessantly.

They can't help but consider an alternative: How pleasant it must be to just work in a bookstore.

You know the truth. It is pleasant most of the time--you can't imagine doing anything else--but it's also complicated. It's bookselling.

Full article here.

Spiritual Teachers

In Buddhist thought, anyone who brings a spiritual lesson home to you is considered kalyanamitra. They can take various forms along the path: as a teacher who gives you accurate information about your spiritual practice; as a fellow student who has been practicing for longer than you and is thus able to shed light on the path you are both on; and, ultimately, as a guru, one can guide you to enlightenment. In a less formal sense, spiritual friends also show up in your life as long time pals, new acquaintances, schoolteachers, and strangers who happen to comment on something you were just thinking about. Even your enemies demonstrate such friendship by forcing you to take a position, drop a particular activity, or gain clarity about who and what you truly desire. And if you’re fortunate, one day, one such friend will show up in a way that let’s you know beyond doubt that you’ve found your teacher.

~Susan Piver

Ajahn Brahm | The door of my heart

"The door of my heart will always be open to you, no matter what you did, who you are."
~ Ajahn Brahm