"Fear not for the future..."

Via imgur.

"Don't give too much for the whistle"

Excerpts from a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in 1779:

When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle; and I saved my money.

As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle...

When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays, indeed, said I, too much for his whistle.

If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle...

Full text of the letter is at the Futility Closet's podcast show notes.

"A good pool player is a sign of a misspent youth"

YouTube link.

My father used to quote that phrase when we played 8-ball.

I don't know the origin of the aphorism (?Twain, ?W.C. Fields), but I did find this while searching:

"I spent half my money on booze, women, and gambling. The other half i wasted." 

--W C Fields

"So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more."

I found that quotation inscribed inside the cover of one of my collegiate notebooks, written probably during some exam week, without a reference.

It's a potentially useful quote, so today I looked it up and found this at Angelfire:

"And what if the powers above do wreck me out on the wine dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and shattering experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more."

"The speaker is Ulysses; the place, the island of the nymph-goddess Calypso, who has held Ulysses captive for seven years during his trouble-filled voyage home; the time, the morning when Calypso, on the orders of Zeus, father of the gods, has told Ulysses that he may go, but that much misery still awaits him before he will see his wife, Penelope...

Of all his qualities, the one that makes Ulysses unforgettable is not so much his capacity for success as his intense humanity and his intrepidity in the face of failure - and failure was his frequent companion, no less terrifying because so often sent by forces he could not control: the capricious and hostile gods from Olympus...

The Ulyssean life is bound many times to encounter failure. Its practitioners do not, of course, court failure -- courting failure is the domain of the death-wishers, not the life-wishers - but neither do they pretend that it is nonexistent. The Ulyssean life is possible in spite of failure, in the midst of failure. Furthermore, the Ulysseans have often known enough failure in their earlier lives to recognize it for what it is: sometimes the result of their own human misjudgments and missteps, but sometimes-many times-the result of circumstances, the result of Fate..."

The essay goes on to cite examples of modern-day people with Ulyssean lives and temperaments (Robert Louis Stevenson, Karen Blixen, Auguste Renoir and others).

"The writing on the wall"

This is the memorable 51st quatrain in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The event refers to an apparition of writing on the wall, witnessed during the Feast of Belshazzar.

During the drunken feast, Belshazzar uses the holy golden and silver vessels, from Solomon's Temple, to praise "the gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone". Soon afterwards, disembodied fingers appear and write on the wall of the royal palace the words:

 מנא, מנא, תקל, ופרסין
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin 

The advisers attempt to interpret the meaning. However, their natural denotations of weights and measures were superficially meaningless: "two minas, a shekel and two parts".

Therefore, the King sends for Daniel, an exiled Israelite taken from Jerusalem, who had served in high office under Nebuchadnezzar. Rejecting offers of reward, Daniel warns the king of the folly of his arrogant blasphemy before reading the text. The meaning that Daniel decrypts from these words is based on passive verbs corresponding to the measure names, "numbered, weighed, divided."

And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. —Daniel 5:25–28 

Although usually left untranslated in English translations of Daniel, these words are known Aramaic names of measures of currency: MENE, a mina (from the root meaning "to count"), TEKEL, a spelling of shekel (from the root meaning "to weigh"), PERES, half a mina (from the root meaning "to divide", but additionally resembling the word for "Persia"). The last word (prs) he read as peres not parsin.

His free choice of interpretation and decoding revealed the menacing subtext: "Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting." The divine menace against the dissolute Belshazzar, whose kingdom was to be divided between the Medes and Persians, was swiftly realized. That very night King Belshazzar is slain, and Darius the Mede becomes King.

p.s. - a note to the Grammar Nazis and copyeditors reading the blog:  the first "nor" in the quotation has always bothered me.  It seems it should be "NOT all thy Piety and wit... NOR all thy Tears..."  Was "nor... nor..." a coventional pairing in previous centuries?

The legacy of Abd-ar-Rahman III, Emir and Caliph of Cordoba

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Abd-ar-Rahman was a patron of arts, especially architecture. A third of his revenue sufficed for the ordinary expenses of government, a third was hoarded, and a third was spent on buildings. After declaring the caliphate, he had a massive palace complex, known as the Medina Azahara, built some five kilometers north of Córdoba. The Medina Azahara was modeled after the old Umayyad palace in Damascus and served as a symbolic tie between the new caliph and his ancestors. It was said that Cordoba contained 3000 mosques and 100,000 shops and homes during his reign. 

Under his reign, Córdoba became the most important intellectual centre of Western Europe. He expanded the city's library, which would be further enriched by his successors.

He also reinforced the Iberian fleet, which became the most powerful in Mediterranean Europe. Iberian raiders moved up to Galicia, Asturias, and North Africa. The colonizers of Fraxinetum came from al-Andalus as well. Due to his consolidation of power, Muslim Iberia became a power for a few centuries. It also brought prosperity, and with this he created mints where pure gold and silver coins were created. He renovated and added to the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba.

He was very wary of losing control and kept tight reins in his family. In 949, he executed one of his sons for conspiring against him. He was extremely tolerant of non-Muslims and Jews and Christians both were treated fairly."

Added to the blog because of this quotation, which I've had in my commonplace book for 40 years:

"I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: - O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!" 

Why you should travel

From TheGoodVibe, via Palahniuk & Chocolate.

How many martinis is too many ?

In this "immortal quatrain," Dorothy Parker explained that her limit was two:

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.” 

Intrigued by the quote, I checked the Wikipedia biography of a woman whose name I have heard, but about whom I knew nothing.  She was a widely quoted author, especially in the 1920s, known for her wit.  A collection of her work "was released in the United States in 1944 under the title The Portable Dorothy Parker. Parker's is one of only three of the Portable series (the other two being William Shakespeare and The Bible) to remain continuously in print."  Here are some of her famous quotes:

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

“What fresh hell is this?”

“Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”

“This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.”

“I had been fed, in my youth, a lot of old wives' tales about the way men would instantly forsake a beautiful woman to flock around a brilliant one. It is but fair to say that, after getting out in the world, I had never seen this happen.”

“So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'" (Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead.”)

“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

“The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.”

For her epitaph, she suggested 'Excuse my dust.'  Ironically "her ashes remained unclaimed in various places, including her attorney Paul O'Dwyer's filing cabinet, for approximately 17 years."  I've requested The Portable Dorothy Parker from the library.

Pithy quotations

From a collection of several dozen assembled at Harvard Magazine:

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both. —Louis D. Brandeis

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer. —Dean Acheson

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society. —Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. —George Santayana

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. —Henry James

A democracy—that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people. —Theodore Parker, 1836

All the security around the American president is just to make sure the man who shoots him gets caught. —Norman Mailer

Quotes from Christopher Hitchens

Selected from a larger collection assembled at 22 Words.

• The finest fury is the most controlled.

• Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.

• I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

• Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.

• The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.

• We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

• Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing.

• Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.

"Wear Sunscreen"

June is the traditional month for graduations and weddings. Across this country and many others, young people are completing middle school, high school, technical schools, colleges and universities, and at a solemn ceremony are listening to advice from graduation speakers.

At my college graduation the scheduled speaker was Martin Luther King, but he was assassinated two months earlier, so Coretta Scott King took his place. One would think that the words from such a memorable occasion would be forever seared into my memory, but in fact I remember not a word of the event.

But I do often think of the words of the "Wear Sunscreen" speech. This was an essay written by Mary Schmich in 1997, and published in the Chicago Tribune. The subsequent history and musical adaptation of the words are elucidated in this Wikipedia entry. The original text is stored here, and at many other places on the net. Over the years this reasonably brief essay has developed an iconic status similar to the "Desiderata" text I blogged last month.

A week from now John and Melanie will be married in Oregon; I regretfully won't be able to attend, but were I there I would offer you the following text of the "Wear Sunscreen" essay as my advice for your future together:

Wear Sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year- olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody's else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths. Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Politicians are like diapers.

They need to be changed frequently.

And for the same reason.