Did we awake from the stupor that can consume our lives — lost amidst bits & bytes, screens & feeds — and find ourselves, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “in a street full of splendid strangers?”
The idea is not that we will win in our own lifetimes and that’s the measure of us, but that we will die trying.”
Barbara Ehrenreich
Stopping puts some space in your long haul. Rest is a way of being. Pacing is recalibrated care. ~Pato Hebert
I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Chapter 26, Knights and Squires – Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The doorway is passable, but few are ready yet to cross the threshold and enter the hallway beyond.
In a dark sea of centuries wherein nothing seemed to flow, a lifetime was only a brief eddy, even for the man who lived it. There was a tedium of repeated days and repeated seasons; then there were aches and pains, and finally Extreme Unction.
And a moment of blackness at the end – or at the beginning, rather.
For then the small shivering soul who had endured the tedium, endured it badly or well, would find itself in a place of light, find itself absorbed in the burning gaze of infinitely compassionate eyes as it stood before the Just One. It would be hard to believe differently.
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter Miller
Brother Francis produced the blueprint. “The highwayman was kind enough to leave this in my keeping, Holy Father. He – he mistook it for a copy of the illumination which I was bringing as a gift.”
“You did not correct his mistake?”
Brother Francis blushed. “I’m ashamed to admit, Holy Father –”
“This, then, is the original relic you found in the crypt?”
“Yes –”
The Pope’s smile became wry. “So, then – the bandit thought your work was the treasure itself? Ah – even a robber can have a keen eye for art, yes? Monsignor Aguerra told us of the beauty of your commemoration. What a pity that it was stolen.”
“It was nothing, Holy Father. I only regret that I wasted fifteen years.”
“Wasted? How ‘wasted’? If the robber had not been misled by the beauty of your commemoration, he might have taken this, might he not?”
Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem.
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars, and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.
But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish by Douglas Adams (1999)
I’ve had my Zero FX electric motorcycle for a few months now. The word to describe the experience is “space-age” – I’m over the moon!
View of SpaceX rocket launch from Vandenberg AFB, 235 miles away.
Fifteen satellites were carried to low-Earth orbit during last night’s mission.
There is also a band.