Before

We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead.
—  William Arthur Ward
[Found on one of the blogs I follow.
The site is titled:  “Lead.Learn.Live.” but actually goes to  http://davidkanigan.com
This particular entry is at:  http://davidkanigan.com/2013/02/19/serve/
I don’t mention / encourage this as much as I probably should, but feel free to type the name “William Arthur Ward” into the “Look For Stuff” search box on the right hand side of my blog (hit enter) and you’ll see a number of interesting quotes from Mr. Ward.  —  KMAB]
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Making You Stronger

…there’s an old saying: that which does not kill you makes you stronger.  i don’t believe that.  i think the things that try to kill you make you angry and sad.  strength comes from the good things: your family, your friends, the satisfaction of hard work. those are the things that keep you whole, those are the things to hold on to when you’re broken.
—    Jax Teller
A character on the TV show:  “Sons of Anarchy“
[I found this quote on a blog I follow: Lead.Learn.Live maintained by David Kanigan.  The actual posting was: http://davidkanigan.com/2012/11/05/no-pain-no-gain/  Dave’s site contains a variety of interesting an motivational postings.  Check it out.    —    KMAB]
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For However Short A Time…

Until recently, I wasn’t aware how completely books dominate my physical existence.  Only when I started cataloging my possessions did I realize that there are books in every room in my house, 1,340 in all.  My obliviousness to this fact has an obvious explanation: I am of Irish descent, and to the Irish, books are as natural and inevitable a feature of the landscape as sand is to Tuaregs or sand traps are to the frat boys at Myrtle Beach.  You know, the guys with the belted shorts.  When the English stormed the Emerald Isle in the 17th century, they took everything that was worth taking and burned everything else.  Thereafter, the Irish had no land, no money, no future.  That left them with words, and words became books, and books, ingeniously coupled with music and alcohol, enabled the Irish to transcend reality.
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People who need to possess the physical copy of a book, not merely an electronic version, believe that the objects themselves are sacred. Some people may find this attitude baffling, arguing that books are merely objects that take up space.  This is true, but so are Prague and your kids and the Sistine Chapel.  Think it through, bozos.
The world is changing, but I am not changing with it.  There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future.  My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are.  The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books.  Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery system.
Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who have clutter issues, or who don’t want other people to see that they are reading books about parallel universes where nine-eyed sea serpents and blind marsupials join forces with deaf Valkyries to rescue high-strung albino virgins from the clutches of hermaphrodite centaurs, but they are useless for people engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books.  Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on.  Books that make us believe, for however short a time, that we shall all live happily ever after.
—    Joe Queenan
From: “One for the Books“
[This quote is from a column posted on the Wall Street Journal online site titled: “My 6,128 Favorite Books“, and is an excerpt from Queenan’s book.
I found the link to this article on a blog I follow: Lead.Learn.Live maintained by David Kanigan.  Dave’s blog  (post) was titled: “He’s Read 6128 Books“
I too suffer from book hoarding syndrome.  I too have a Nook.  I have tried it, but don’t care for it for reading books.  I use the Nook as a portable dictionary and web browser (mostly reading news or email).  I find it grossly inadequate as a tool for typing or other data input.  I use my home computer (desktop/netbook) for most everything else.
When I was younger, I would only open a book so wide as to read it, but not so wide as to break the binding.  Most of the books I bought were paperbacks as hardbound were far to expensive for my budget.  Now, while I “respect” the books (don’t destroy them), I also dog-ear them and underline them and write comments in the margins.  Over time, I’ve found that books are like old friends I’m having an on-going conversation with.  I can come back later to refresh the conversation or just touch bases with their ideas.  And, of course, there’s the requirement for a steady stream of quotes for this blog.   —    KMAB]
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Recipe To Write: Start With One Aching Urge

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.  The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader.  If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it.  You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story.  For a bad story is only an ineffective story.

—    John Steinbeck

[The above quote was found at a blog site I follow (and have mentioned several times): Lead.Learn.Live maintained by David Kanigan.

The specific quote was under the heading: “Writing Better“

If there is a “magic” in blogging, it is that it allows those of us who are not traditional writers to express ourselves – to ease our “aching urge” – conveying to the universe of readers the moments in our days where something touched us and made us feel something important just happened in our lives.  Sometimes those things will be banally trite to most; but, sometimes, to others they will be like the light from a candle, passed from one to another, without loss to either but with more light for both.   —    KMAB]

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Two-minute Sex

I do not speed-read books; it seems to defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, much like speed-eating a Porterhouse steak or applying the two-minute drill to sex.
—     Joe Queenan
From:  “One for the Books“
[This quote is from a column posted on the Wall Street Journal online site titled: “My 6,128 Favorite Books“, and is an excerpt from Queenan’s book.
I found the link to this article on a blog I follow: Lead.Learn.Live maintained by David Kanigan.  Dave’s blog was titled: “He’s Read 6128 Books“
Like most “readers”, I’ve been down the path of learning to speed-read.  From high school, to college, to multiple companies – everyone seems to want me to read faster.  I CAN read reasonably fast when I need to.  I know how to look ahead, skip non-critical words, change speed for content / purpose, etc ad nauseam.  But when I read, I tend to cherish words and ideas; thinking new thoughts about new things or in different ways.  When I read for pleasure – and I mostly read for pleasure – I take my time and cherish ever flavor, every nuance, every smell, every touch created by the author’s imagination and conveyed through the language of words to my imagination.  Of course, I enjoy a two-minute drill as much as the next person, but I don’t want EVERY experience to be a two-minute drill any more than I want EVERY experience to be a two-hour visit to the dentist (mixed metaphor/pun intended).  —  KMAB]
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Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses?  What do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice, ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice the things that you do.
And forever is losing a sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?  Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse.  You’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten, with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another
A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now  a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at twenty my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five, now I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A man of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty, once more, babies play ‘round my knee,
Again, we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me.  My wife is now dead.
I look at the future.  I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years, and the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles.  Grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass,  A young man still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people.  Open and see.
Not a cranky old man.
Look closer …  See …  Me.
[Another of those wonderful poems and inspirational words which end up making it to the internet and touching thousands of people.  I found this on a blog I follow maintained by David Kanigan:  Lead.Learn.Live
http://davidkanigan.com/2012/08/19/cranky-old-man/
If you have a chance, please visit David’s site and thank him for sharing this with us…   —   KMAB]
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High Anxiety

Somewhere between checked out and freaked out lies an anxiety sweet spot… in which a person is motivated to succeed yet not so anxious that performance takes a dive.  This moderate amount of anxiety keeps people on their toes, enables them to juggle multiple tasks and puts them on high alert for potential problems.
—    re-quoted from David Kanigan’s Blog: Lead.Learn.Live
[The specific post is located at:  http://davidkanigan.com/2012/06/20/your-anxiety-should-be-somewhere-between-checked-out-and-freaked-out/
which was, in turn, from WSJ.com: Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best
Very reminiscent of the comments made in the book: Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.  Although there, the accelerating rate of change being brought about by the future (actually, increasing volume of changes in the present) was what was causing the increased anxiety.   —  KMAB]
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Two Philosophies

 

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday.  And lessen the suffering of others.  You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
—    Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist
[Originally quoted at one of the blogs I follow:  Lead.Learn.Live   —   KMAB]
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It Couldn’t Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face.  If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
—   Written by: Edgar Albert Guest
[Sometimes I find a poem I like, but because it’s newly discovered, it doesn’t really fall under the heading of “favorites” and so doesn’t end up on my Poems page.  This is one of those.  At first it’s childish.  Read it again and you find yourself smiling.  Read it again and it seems profound.
I found this poem at one of the blogs I follow:
Lead.Learn.Live.
David Kanigan:  Inspiration, Ideas & Information
He, in turn, found it at:  www.poetryfoundation.org
Have fun looking at both!!  —  KMAB]
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