If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain / If I can
ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain / Or help one fainting Robin /
Unto his Nest again / I shall not live in Vain. -Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect
them in others. -Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his
head. -Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849)
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ
from that of their social environment. -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The vast majority of human beings dislike and even dread all notions with
which they are not familiar. Hence it comes about that at their first
appearance innovators have always been derided as fools and madmen. -Aldous
Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
Kindness is loving people more than they deserve. -Joseph Joubert, moralist
and essayist (1754-1824)
Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops
of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. -Mohandas K.
Gandhi (1869-1948)
They know enough who know how to learn. -Henry Adams (1838-1918)
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the
expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase. -John
Balguy
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. -La Rochefoucauld
(1613-1680)
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man
inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. -Nathaniel Hawthorne,
novelist and short-story writer (1804-1864)
Victory breeds enmity; the defeated live in pain. The peaceful live
happily, avoiding both victory and defeat. -Buddha (c. 563-483 BCE)
To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less
important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. -Aldous
Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person, in its
first meaning, is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that
everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously, playing a role.
-Robert Ezra Park, sociologist (1864-1944)
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're
looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs,
we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
-P.J. O'Rourke, writer (1947- )
The butterfly flitting from flower to flower ever remains mine, I lose the
one that is netted by me. -Rabindranath Tagore
And all I want is to hold on. Because that is all I know how to do.
I've given up so much, let so many things slip through my memory grain by grain. I can't let it happen anymore, although I know it will. There are so many things I think over and over and over, "I can't forget this. I won't forget this moment." And I do. My memory will meander over lost treasures, and I want to hold on to them again, I want to keep them forever with me, but in an instant, they have vanished again.
I have the opportunity to revist moments, to know again everything they meant to me. To relive my past in the present. And I want to grasp it so tightly, yet I know it will be gone again.
And it is the strangest thing to be sitting in a place knowing you'll be gone in such a short amount of time. So much so that you think about the leaving more than you think about the time spent there, enjoying the moment.
And it's not that I don't enjoy the moment, because the moment is beautiful, and the moment is something that I want with me every day, but I simply can't have it. And I know that my memory will fail me, so immediate worry sets in about forgetting.
I can hold a picture, remembering the moment but never really HAVING it.
There are so many things in life I've put up with just to have it be finished and over with. But there are very few things which I truly treasure. And those things are the suffocation of a memory, and perhaps the reason why they leave me as they do.
"Hold On." Hold on to something that means everything to you because it's the only way you'll every really have it. But is that what "Hold On" really means? It could be the waiting, the stop, slow down, and see what happens. But that has never been and never will be me. It is the moment now and the moment past. That is all I have, and that is all I live for.
There's a complex about the future that I have, and I'm not quite sure why, although there are many possible reasons. I'm afraid, in the end. Afraid of what I will or won't have, what I will or won't know, what kind of money I will or won't make, what kind of life I will or won't have.
But in the end, it IS a day by day thing. There's just no union of the two visions, no way to make them come together. You can't have the big picture without the details, and you can't have details without having a big picture. But you just can't concentrate on both at the same time. And who is to say which should take precedence?
As usual, things are piling up for me to do, and I always find something else to occupy my time. There has been no time to sit down and think, to sort through it all. To make sense of anything in the slightest. But maybe that's life, and maybe I'm not doing the things I need to do or making the decisions I need to make. Mea culpa.
I want to sit there forever, want to feel the same way. Want to feel as if the world is simply in the palm of my hand, and all it's problems can be solved with a single thought. Want to have the moments that are so special to me. But again, I simply can't.
And it's a strange thing when you realize what a huge impact certain things have on you. Sitting there, singing word for word, having a revelation of how much this means to me. And I never thought it would. Something simple, you disregard. But the moments add up so quickly...moments to weeks, weeks to months, months to years...and suddenly, you realize it's everything you have and everything you are. And it seems so trivial from the outside looking in, but you're on the inside looking out, and you know there's something different. Something that has such a total part of your life...and you wouldn't want it any other way.
I was drawn...
Riding atop a black horse.
Whatever prize there was,...
I could only observe...
Where the trouble starts.
Where does it end?
How can I be cured,...
How, before it ends?
I know... life would be different if I... held on. Held on.
I know... I could be something if I... held on.
Gave her life away,...
Put it in my pocket when it shoulda been framed.
Oh, I lost its shine.
Gotta get this outta my head,...
Out of my bed!
How could it end,...
End like this?
How could it end?
I know... life would be different had I... held on. Held on.
I know... I could be something had I... held on. Held on.
I know... I could be something if I... held on! Held on.
I know... life would be different if I... held on! Held on!
Held on. Held on. If I...
Held on. Held on. If I...
Held on. Held on. If I...
Held on. Held on.
