Bugun Pazar
Bugun beni ilk defa gunese cikardilar.
Ve ben omrumde ilk defa gokyuzunun
bu kadar benden uzak
bu kadar mavi
bu kadar genis olduguna sasarak
kimildamadan durdum.
Sonra saygiyla topraga oturdum,
dayadim sirtimi duvara.
Bu anda ne dusmek dalgalara,
bu anda ne kavga, ne hurriyet, ne karim.
Toprak, gunes ve ben...
Bahtiyarim...
-Nazim Hikmet
Today is Sunday
Today for the first time, they took me out into the sun.
And for the first time in my life, aghast
I stood there wondering
how the sky could be so far from me
so blue
and so vast.
Then with respect, I sat on the ground,
leaned my back against the wall.
Not a care about diving into the waves
Or about strife or freedom or my wife.
The soil, the sun and me...
I feel blissful.
7.26.2005
7.20.2005
We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and answer to inquiries and say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts - not to hurt others.
- from Middlemarch, by George Eliot
- from Middlemarch, by George Eliot
7.15.2005
excerpts from Eric Hoffer's notebooks (from Harper's July 2005 issue)
WHAT OTHERS THINK
It is not good for our efforts at self-realization to know the opinions other people have of us. It is difficult or perhaps impossible to be ourselves if we are known. 1951
BROODING
I am more and more convinced that taking life overseriously is a frivolous thing. There is an affected self-dramatizing in the brooding over one's prospects and destiny. The trifling attitude of an Ecclesiastes is essentially sober and serious. It is in closer touch with the so-called eternal truths than are the most penetrating metaphysical probing and the most sensitive poetic insights. 1952
PLENTY OF TIME
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time-not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me. 1952
THINKING AND WAITING
Thinking with me is like looking for a person whose address I don't know. I stand on a street corner all day long waiting for him to pass by. Certainly there are more efficient ways of locating a person whose address you don't know. But if you have a whole lifetime to wait and enjoy watching things go by, then waiting on street corners is as good a method as any. If you don't find the person you are looking for, you might meet someone else. 1953
THERE ARE BUT A FEW YEARS
The most important point is-and remains-not to take oneself seriously. There is no past, and, certainly, no future. There are but a few years-ten at the most. You pass your days as best you can, doing as little harm as possible. Let the desires be few and treat expectations as weeds. You read, scribble as the spirit moves you, hear some new music, see every week the few people you are attached to. Again: guard yourself, above all, against self-dramatization, a feeling of importance, and the sprouting of expectations. 1954
Here is "Passionate State of the Mind" by Hoffer, from Harper's Magazine 1954
WHAT OTHERS THINK
It is not good for our efforts at self-realization to know the opinions other people have of us. It is difficult or perhaps impossible to be ourselves if we are known. 1951
BROODING
I am more and more convinced that taking life overseriously is a frivolous thing. There is an affected self-dramatizing in the brooding over one's prospects and destiny. The trifling attitude of an Ecclesiastes is essentially sober and serious. It is in closer touch with the so-called eternal truths than are the most penetrating metaphysical probing and the most sensitive poetic insights. 1952
PLENTY OF TIME
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time-not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me. 1952
THINKING AND WAITING
Thinking with me is like looking for a person whose address I don't know. I stand on a street corner all day long waiting for him to pass by. Certainly there are more efficient ways of locating a person whose address you don't know. But if you have a whole lifetime to wait and enjoy watching things go by, then waiting on street corners is as good a method as any. If you don't find the person you are looking for, you might meet someone else. 1953
THERE ARE BUT A FEW YEARS
The most important point is-and remains-not to take oneself seriously. There is no past, and, certainly, no future. There are but a few years-ten at the most. You pass your days as best you can, doing as little harm as possible. Let the desires be few and treat expectations as weeds. You read, scribble as the spirit moves you, hear some new music, see every week the few people you are attached to. Again: guard yourself, above all, against self-dramatization, a feeling of importance, and the sprouting of expectations. 1954
Here is "Passionate State of the Mind" by Hoffer, from Harper's Magazine 1954
7.12.2005
Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
- Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
- Edgar Allan Poe
7.05.2005
today's afternoon
in the middle of the day, my mind wanders away for a walk in the humid sky. i reach for it, try to grab it but it is gone and it has taken my heart with it. i know that only some love can fill my body that is left crouching over a desk. otherwise it will collapse. but people are strange. they will make fun of me. and people change. they will not come to me.
you listen to a song, you look at the past and feel sad but today is no different than any day in the past. why don't you think about today as much as you think about that day. and maybe reach over, forgetting how far you might be, to catch my heart and bring it back to me?
you listen to a song, you look at the past and feel sad but today is no different than any day in the past. why don't you think about today as much as you think about that day. and maybe reach over, forgetting how far you might be, to catch my heart and bring it back to me?
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