Wisdom Quotes - I Read Tea Tags

Oct 2009 revisited

What is it about October and being overcome by life? 

Mark Twain  is quoted on the teabag tag:

                                 The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself. 

This tag does not make it into my trash. I tell myself it is a reminder of my intent to visit Twain's CT home. But, it is more. 

Too often it is an outcome. A most genuine young person's  discomfort overcame him on Oct. 3rd, 2009.

A wise friend eulogized this life as --- an anomaly. 

He was genuine. Do not underestimate the interminable value of such a quality. It made his words drip with honesty, his gestures bleed sincerity, his compassion captivate with clarity, and his life – touch every person who found themselves fortunate enough to cross its path. He was a good man. Let me repeat this statement, for it seems to necessitate an extraordinary emphasis. He was a good man. In these lives we lead, such men are as rare to find as they are difficult to lose.

Being genuine is often a lonely road. I agree with this characterization. As hundreds of young acquaintances and some true friends mingled among disarmed friends-of-family to pay respects or say farewell... another anomaly played out and spoke to the dissonance that created such profound sadness and ultimately, loneliness. 

I am left to wonder if good humor was a mask on this soul, and sadness, the ultimate poison. Masks do more than hide. They reimagine. They cover up and that is not a road to healing.

The Christian burial of this non-believer provided a hyper-view of how anomalies of existence contributed to discomfort.

At the LGTB Rally [National Equality March] many lay claim to the temptation of life taking in the face failure to be accepted and the possibility of equality. To all those attending and knowing such a pain -- may they find strength in the self-knowing exemplified by Lt. Dan Choi. 

May those who feel the pain of distance from family for any reason - may you find a larger human family to connect every day - not just at this rally. 

I am grateful that a trip to the theater helped me know the story of Matt Shepard. I was encouraged as a mother on  10.08.09 that the nation was one step closer to being a better union thanks to a conference report in support of the Matthew Shepard Act before the Senate. Matthew Shepard was a gay student who was beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998. But it was a step, a legislative rider, limited to facilitating investigations of actual acts of violence, not threats of violence or other verbal conduct. Later the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 was passed

 ~~~ Back to Quotes At age 10, my life's goal was to have a published quote in Reader's Digest. 

In 2009, there were  4242 pages of RD (Reader's Digest Quotes) quotes online. They were categorized as Wit & Wisdom. Now Twitter-sized on-line world, everyone is self-published and searchable. Wisdom is metered out in blogs. It remains a habit, an immediate go-to to find the quotes when I come across an RD magazine.  And I am still in search of wisdom within from with my own experience.

Control -- lack of it causes stress, so redefine

A $2.00 fill-a-bag with books -- church rummage sale has given me much reading material which remains on the To-Be-Read list. I started with Ageless Body, Timeless Mind Deepak Chopra, MD. at the onset of this new beginning...totally oblivious to its potential relevance.

It has been a rewarding journey, thus far. I have reached the second half on practice. Not yet brave enough to venture from reading to doing given the current unsettled household. But I must say that there have been many references to fascinating research. Some literature as well. Of particular note as it rains and there is continuing news of rivers overflowing man devised controls in the daily news I am keenly aware from my shallows. I failed to connect the passage sans citation in my '71 HS yearbook as from Siddhartha. It is followed by my 1st published uncredited scrawling itself an odd renewed recollection of personal experience. I am certain there is a take-away. At the moment I just record.
I am only a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river. I have transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been nothing but an obstacle on their travels. They traveled to seek money and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly across that obstacle. But for some among thousands, a few, four or five, the river has stopped being an obstacle, they have heard its voice, they have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to them, as it has become sacred to me.


And each flake
Of snow
Intricately different
Yet not alone
Is carried on
By the wind
to the waiting ground
maybe to be plowed
forced in a mass
till death
maybe to be shaped into a man of snow with charcoal eyes
Maybe a single flake will melt into a world of its own
Each flake of snow intricately different yet not alone

...insert Henry David Thoreau here ...

You are you and I am I
If we meet it’s beautiful
If not
It’s because
You are you and I am I

I came in hope of finding a way to expand my own reflection, I have found a way to make it something more than what it was.

Perspective on Reading

I randomly listen to talk programs. I happened upon a program on Literacy. It was inspiring. Brought me to tears. It included stories about adults making the commitment to read and how this commitment and the reading transformed their lives.

I took away this new perspective on Reading.
The transition from Learn to Read to Read to Learn is where many non-readers get lost in the system. This transition most commonly happens in about the 4th grade.