Thank you for the reminder Laura Lee, my dear Facebook friend! With your Jack Kerouac quote below, that is…
“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” ~ Jack Kerouac
A new Sunday Reflections series, coming up (…a note to self: if not wise, seek advice…)
In dealing with life’s challenging aspects, do you find yourself seeking comfort in the statements (world famous or not) of individuals – the living as well as the dead, who seem to have attained wisdom? I do. More often than not, in fact. For I am not one who leads a wise life. Not even what can be defined vaguely as wise. At least not according to what I conclude from my occasional scan-readings of countless posts on some social media platforms regarding how-to-live-with this-with that-formulas for our lives.
If you have ever encountered overly joyous proclaims, prescribing an overnight recipe as to how to be happy with everything traumatic that comes our way, then you will understand why any pleasure I can possibly take in those types of announcements is exhausted by now…
As I have noticed only a short time ago, my antipathy for such overgeneralizing glee kept creeping up on me. I realized my emotional reaction was due to one tendency I had: for too long of a while, I had been equating the gleeful re-descriptions of traumatic life experiences with an anomalous exhibition of self-imposed perjury by those “others”. Instead of resisting their “attitudes”, though, I have decided to adjust mine then and there. Negativity was not suiting me after all. Sarcasm, maybe. But not negativity. Not even as acceptable as the worst outfit I had ever worn in public or in my home’s privacy. At least, not when I was donning such negative vibes for prolonged periods of time. As a result of my own dislike toward my moping-behind-the-back-of-others-phases, today’s reflection has come about, which signifies a forerunner to several others to follow in the upcoming weeks. I should probably call it what it really is: a much needed break from articulating negativity in any shape or form…
Having made all these disclaimers, I owe you one advance warning: be prepared not to always expect a rosy advice from the famed and wise (no sarcasm here) during my so-called vacation of serious intent in the land of positivity. Knowing myself (though not at all in the sense of the Ancient Greek aphorism), I suspect that I will end up making sure to sneak among the sunshiny statements of wisdom a few from the dark forces. My overactive mind, preoccupied with creating torturous concerns for me has, after all, proven itself time and again as quite a successful of a dictator when it comes to a disregard of common wisdom…
Filed under Reflections
Anais Nin
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~ Anais Nin
Filed under Reflections
Nazım uttered…love or lust, I replied
The commitment Nazım’s lover speaks of in the following lines is indeed vast, as is that lover’s determination to protect love for life…though these realizations are a reality only for the one in love. The concept of leaving, hence, never materializes in that heart.
Lust, on the other hand, is easy to leave behind…as easy as leaving the one who is merely lusted after.
“Benim keIime hazinem çok geniştir, derdim. Senin bir keIimene yetemedim; git, ne demekti sevgiIim?” ~ Nazım Hikmet
“I used to claim that my word power was vast. It did, however, not suffice to your one word; what again was the meaning of ‘leave’, my love?” ~ My own translation from the Turkish original
Filed under Reflections
…paper boats…
[Click for Photo/Image Credit]
Perhaps, you know the feeling: a moment in which a sad memory is triggered yet once again but meets a bitter-sweet attempt at a relief in the heart no matter how faint its plea…without you having realized a change in you toward emotional survival. For you are just too tired of the agony that has been bleeding out of the core of your being, dragging your original self to the open seas, trying in desperation to no longer hope against the apparent outcome…
i had never learned
how to sail a paper boat
in nature’s moving water
when i was little
throughout my adult life then
i suffered despondent beyond despair
clinging to my passions fervent dreams visions
begging the river around me to flow at my tending will
i the desperate fool for love am yet to set sail
to dissolve into the current of the sea
for i have been told about the harmony within each ripple
how it promises to ease what pains me to feel…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
8.23.2015
Filed under Poetry
If Hemingway said so…
Before using superlatives when intangible matters are involved, I tend to be cautious for one simple reason: what is “most” this or that for one person is not to be assumed to have the same impact on another. When emotions are of focus, such judgment becomes even a far more slippery attempt. As for the sentiment Ernest Hemingway articulates in his short story collection, Men Without Women as in the following lines, it has found its home in my soul with no feasible argument by my logic whatsoever:
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.“
At least one question then remains: who decides whether the loss is reversible?
Filed under Reflections
…when a celebrated author understands…
“It’s something everybody wants – for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Filed under Reflections
Have you tried your koan/Koan today?
Have you ever tried koan/Koan? I haven’t. Not yet anyway. I am, however, more than intrigued now that I have seen this photograph of John Tarrant, a Zen master, radiating such full-blown-happiness laughter. Aren’t you? Perhaps you would like to know how he defines this concept:
“A koan is a kind of technology, a hack for the mind. It strips our opinions and views away….[it] surprise[s] you by transcending the terms on which you took [it] up. [It] draws you into a different way of seeing and experiencing your world.” ~ John Tarrant (b. 1949)
[Photo Credit: John Tarrant – Rebel Buddha]
Filed under Reflections
“You will find poetry nowhere […]
unless you bring some of it with you.” ~ Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)
[Image Credits: Google – Free ]
Heeding the suggested transportation of a precious cargo today, I bring along a poem that is one of my most favorites by Nazım Hikmet, a poet whose entire literary work I have been admiring since my teenage years. The translation to English is my attempt at a rather intimately-felt justice to this exilic author’s native tongue:
Seni düşünmek güzel şey, ümitli şey,
Dünyanın en güzel sesinden
En güzel şarkıyı dinlemek gibi birşey…
Fakat artık ümit yetmiyor bana,
Ben artık şarkı dinlemek değil,
Şarkı söylemek istiyorum.
Thinking of you is beautiful, it gives hope,
It is like listening to the most beautiful song
Through the most beautiful voice in the world…
Hope to me, however, does no longer suffice,
I don’t want to listen to songs anymore,
I want to sing one.
Filed under Reflections
…contradictions…
my scream had been so loud
that i didn’t hear the silence
waiting still in angered calm
for the murderous pain to cease
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
7.30.2015
[Photo Credits: Self; Location: “Ada” in Sinop, Turkey]
hülyaswritings 