do you see the world through troubled eyes?

what do you think of the pain behind my eyes?

can you see the hope hidden behind the lies?

beaucoup bad shit

i am, as always, entirely and incidentally, just-about-averagely damned; although, to be fair, i am far better than i deserve.

have i wasted everything in profligacy?

has everything past been only degenerate, degraded, dissolute,
unrestrained, and deplorably dissipated dalliance?

is all i am a rake, a debauché, a libertine, a roué, a wastrel?





domine deus noster, miserere nobis.

merely gossip and tales for other times

there are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning,
the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. the rest is
merely gossip, and tales for other times.

annie dillard

the surface of the deep

it is hard to explain how much joy i have discovered sailing on the surface of the deep searching, almost desperately, for a gale, a situation that finds the majority of people sick and in search of an exit. it is while enclosed, confronted by this terror that i find a moments respite from my lackluster and forlorn life even in the midst of the angry wind which whistles screamingly by the ear, terrifying and overwhelming the senses, not from the sound solely, but from the movement of the water whipped up by its agitating force --an unsettling ride, where the smallest waves top out higher than a person stands. i miss it, acutely, even as i write down these tame observations.

peacocks and lilies

it is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

leo tolstoy the kreutzer sonata (1889)

the reason for the unreason with which you treat reason, so weakens my reason that with reason i complain of your beauty.

miguel de cervantes don quixote de la mancha (ch.1 pt.1)

remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.

john ruskin the stones of venice

in hoc signo vinces

the confidence of the founders of sigma chi was based upon a belief that the principles which they professed and the ideal of the fraternity which they sought were but imperfectly realized in the organizations by which they were surrounded.

the standard with which the fraternity started was declared by isaac m. jordan to be that of admitting no man to membership in sigma chi who is not believed to be:

a man of good character...
a student of fair ability...
with ambitious purposes...
a congenial disposition...
possessed of good morals...
having a high sense of honor and
a deep sense of personal responsibility.

sigma chi the jordan standard

seven point creed

• be true to yourself
• make each day your masterpiece
• help others
• drink deeply from good books, especially the bible
• make friendship a fine art
• build a shelter against a rainy day
• pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings everyday
  

john wooden

charitable deceptions of nostalgia

he was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.

gabriel garciá márquez love in the time of cholera

the hazards of illicit love

...it was difficult for him to comprehend that two free adults without a past and living on the fringes of a closed society's prejudices had chosen the hazards of illicit love. she explained, "it was his wish." moreover, a clandestine life shared with a man who was never completely hers, and in which they often knew the sudden explosion of happiness, did not seem to her a condition to be despised. on the contrary: life had shown her that perhaps it was exemplary.

gabriel garcía márquez love in the time of cholera

epitaph

the Body of B. Franklin, printer
like the Cover of an old Book
its Contents torn out
and stripped of its Lettering & Gilding
lies here Food for Worms
for, it will, as he Believed, appear once more
in a New and more Elegant edition
Corrected and Improved by the Author.

benjamin franklin

mentally handicapped

women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently.

-scott adams dilbert