I’ve logged more experience than most with simplicity and the complexity you discover inside simplicity, minimalism and asocial behavior, endurance and landscape.
Here is the truth: I think some deep wisdom inside me (a) sensed the stress, (b) was terrified for me, and (c) gave me something new and hard to focus on in order to prevent me from lapsing into a despair coma — and also to keep me from having a jelly jar of wine in my hand.
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No one ever understood disaster until it came. Josephine Herbst
No one ever understood disaster until it came.
Josephine Herbst
It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. Madeleine L’Engle
It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.
Madeleine L’Engle
Adversity in immunological doses has its uses; more than that crushes. John Updike
Adversity in immunological doses has its uses; more than that crushes.
John Updike
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size. Mark Twain
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.
Mark Twain
Years ago a person, he was unhappy, didn’t know what to do with himself, he’d go to church, start a revolution — something. Today you’re unhappy? Can’t figure it out? What is the salvation? Go shopping. Arthur Miller
Years ago a person, he was unhappy, didn’t know what to do with himself, he’d go to church, start a revolution — something. Today you’re unhappy? Can’t figure it out? What is the salvation? Go shopping.
Arthur Miller
You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? Steven Wright
You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?
Steven Wright
Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It’s so curious: one can resist tears and “behave” very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer . . . and everything collapses. Colette
It’s so curious: one can resist tears and “behave” very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer . . . and everything collapses.
Colette
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and recovered hope. George Eliot
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and recovered hope.
George Eliot
I can’t forgive my friends for dying. I don’t find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing. Logan Pearsall Smith
I can’t forgive my friends for dying. I don’t find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
Logan Pearsall Smith
Jim Moore, founder of a famous New York restaurant, had many friends in the theatrical world. As he grew older, several of them died and were sorely missed by Moore. One Friday afternoon he made a pilgrimage to the graves of those departed friends, remonstrating with them for their thoughtlessness in dying. When he got to George M. Cohan’s grave, he took out a parcel of fish and thumped it against the headstone. “In case you don’t know,” he shouted, “today’s Friday, and I just want you to see what you’re missing.” Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes
Jim Moore, founder of a famous New York restaurant, had many friends in the theatrical world. As he grew older, several of them died and were sorely missed by Moore. One Friday afternoon he made a pilgrimage to the graves of those departed friends, remonstrating with them for their thoughtlessness in dying. When he got to George M. Cohan’s grave, he took out a parcel of fish and thumped it against the headstone. “In case you don’t know,” he shouted, “today’s Friday, and I just want you to see what you’re missing.”
Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love. Madame de Staël
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
Madame de Staël
Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the most revered spiritual teachers of this century, once asked a small group of listeners what they would say to a close friend who is about to die. Their answers dealt with assurances, words about beginnings and endings, and various gestures of compassion. Krishnamurti stopped them short. “There is only one thing you can say to give the deepest comfort,” he said. “Tell him that in his death a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you go also. He will not be alone.” Larry Dossey
Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the most revered spiritual teachers of this century, once asked a small group of listeners what they would say to a close friend who is about to die. Their answers dealt with assurances, words about beginnings and endings, and various gestures of compassion. Krishnamurti stopped them short. “There is only one thing you can say to give the deepest comfort,” he said. “Tell him that in his death a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you go also. He will not be alone.”
Larry Dossey
In the story, an old man is dying and calls his people to his side. He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring, wives, and relatives. “Break the stick,” he instructs them. With some effort, they all snap their sticks in half. “This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken.” The old man next gives each of his kin another stick and says, “. . . Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half.” No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man smiles. “We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés
In the story, an old man is dying and calls his people to his side. He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring, wives, and relatives. “Break the stick,” he instructs them. With some effort, they all snap their sticks in half. “This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken.” The old man next gives each of his kin another stick and says, “. . . Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half.” No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man smiles. “We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The highest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude. Thornton Wilder
The highest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude.
Thornton Wilder
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something. H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
I cried at first . . . and then, it was such a beautiful day, that I forgot to be unhappy. Frances Noyes Hart
I cried at first . . . and then, it was such a beautiful day, that I forgot to be unhappy.
Frances Noyes Hart