Through the Looking Glass

The Essence of Destiny

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they will become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.

"So it is clear," I said, "that we could choose not to have intelligence, if ever that intelligence contributes to our ill-being." Everyone was of my opinion, and yet I found no one who wanted to accept the bargain of becoming imbecilic in order to become content. From this I concluded that if we set store by happiness, we set even greater store by reason."

A few words to make thinkers reflect
from "Story of a Good Brahman" by Voltaire

"The mad hatter he waits
for Alice
To come to tea again
He waits forever for his
old lover
And always wonderin'
Will I see stars falling all
around your head
when you return."

"Sherry Fraser" Marcy Playground

They always say to 'follow your heart.'
But what happens when your heart fails you?

"No,
it's no disgrace for a man, even a wise man,
to learn many things and not be too rigid.
You've seen trees by a raging winter torrent,
how many sway with the flood and salvage every twig,
but not the stubborn-they're ripped out, roots and all.
Bend or break. The same when a man is sailing:
haul your sheets to taut, never give an inch,
you'll capsize, go the rest of the voyage
keel up and the rowing-benches under."

-Haemon in Antigone by Sophocles

Some days I find myself lost in my own thoughts. I am astray in an endless maze of designs, schemes, beliefs, inspirations, aspirations, desires, intentions, perceptions, loves, detestations, hopes, and uncertainties. I fretfully awake from my trance, and try desperately to understand my inner dilemmas. I find myself searching for an answer that will never be found. I think to myself that perhaps someone else will understand my perplexity. Although, my search once again ends in disillusionment; for no one person can understand my disposition, if I cannot comprehend it first. I am left in utter bewilderment. I begin to feel like Alice in her “Pool of Tears." I contemplate my beliefs until sleep overcomes me. I pray that tomorrow’s new day will bring the solution to my catch-22. I am never so lucky.

I asked a boy the other day if my soul was showing. He looked at me puzzled and said, "Everyone lets their soul show sometimes."

"It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow... Climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along." ~Robert J. Hastings
I wish beautiful quotes like these were as easy as they appear. Don't you? Yet I still find myself trying.