The Best Mirror Is An Old Friend.

(Last night, we had a reunion of old friends in an old place.)

There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes


New friends are only good if they become old. For the passage of time always sift new friends to people you knew and friends you care about.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

The best mirror is an old friend.

- George Herbert


Friends come and go
Those that remained becomes old
Have their reasons to stay
Like a mirror they say -
"We're what you deserve
and deserving of you."

- Ghostwise

Tragedy Is When Man Is Nobler Than The Forces That Destroy Him.

(Rescue crews carry a woman to safety after she was pulled out of the rubble of a market in Sichuan province.)

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

- George Orwell

More than 200 relief workers have been buried by a mudslide in China's Sichuan province, a week after a massive earthquake devastated the country.

- Picture Above: Reuters, Story/Picture below: Daily Mail Online.

( An elderly woman mourns as her grandson is buried under the debris of a collapsed building)

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.

- Oscar Wilde

There is often no answer for tragedies. But there must always be compassion. If we need reasons before we can have compassion for the sufferings, than that is a greater tragedy for mankind.

- Ghostwise

What Is Your Karma? Miss Sharon Stone.

Picture source: san-fu.blogspot.com
(I was upset today by remarks not properly thought through which brought more sufferings to the victims.)

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, 'Is that karma? When you're not nice then the bad things happen to you?' "

- Sharon Stone

More than 80,000 dead, hundreds of thousands injured, millions lost their homes and everything they owned; among them innocent children and new-born. Have they all not being nice to deserve this karma? Isn't karma one's retribution for one's deeds and not because of the deeds of others? Miss Sharon Stone.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~:

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

- Wayne Dyer

What happened to us is not necessary our karma; how we react to it definitely is.

- Ghostwise

A Time For Every Matter Under Heaven.

(There is a death in the family today.)

For everything there is a season,

And a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to throw away;

A time to tear, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate,

A time for war, and a time for peace.

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8


How happy and successful our live is,
Is how and when we die.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will look at Death as a friend, if he comes gently and kind.

- Ghostwise

If You've Two Ends, You Can Start From Either.

(Visited a sausage factory today.)

“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

- Otto von Bismarck

One filled us up, the other is supposed to protect us. And we don't have the stomach to see them made.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

“Everything in life has an end. Only sausages have two.”

- German Proverb


If you've two ends, you can start from either.

- Ghostwise

I Remember The Time I Knew What Happiness Was.

(Stir up some memories today.)

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

- Musical "Cats" lyrics - Memory


Memories
Like the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me - Would we? Could we?

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply to choose to forget

So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were

- Barbra Streisand - The Way We Were


Memory flows softly
Like wind through trees.
And where it touches,
The leaves quiver.
And my heart flutters.

- Ghostwise

Write Your Marriage In Poetry & Fairy Tales End.

(I attended her wedding in the rain today.)

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

- Germaine Greer


Most thought they only need to fall in love once and when that stales...

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Marriage--a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose.

- Beverly Nichols


Too often now, the last page is written in lawyer's ink.

- Ghostwise

When You Feel There Is No Escape, That's When You Must.

(Went to the movie for a few hours of escapes.)

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

- Anais Nin


When the walls close in, make your escape...

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~~"

“Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep, well nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but you know, there's no escape, there's no excuse, so just suck up and be nice.”

- Ani Difranco

There is no escape if you choose to sink in the quicksand of self-pity,

But even quicksand can't hold you if you can grow wings and fly away.

- Ghostwise

The Cricket Full Of Mirth.

(Last night a cricket got into my room and kept me awake.)

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth.

- John Milton (1608 - 1674)


The cricket sang of blissful contentment
Oblivious of my sleepless resentment.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

I do believe that an intimacy with the world of crickets and their kind can be salutary - not for what they are likely to teach us about ourselves but because they remind us, if we will let them, that there are other voices, other rhythms, other strivings and fulfillments than our own.

- Howard E. Evans


I have nothing against crickets, except when they sang on my bed.

- Ghostwise

Why are so many rich men paupers?

(How I hate working with a stingy man, especially when I had to.)

“A rich man who is stingy is the worst pauper”

- Yiddish Proverb quotes


Why are so many rich men paupers?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“The generous man enriches himself by giving; the miser hoards himself poor”

- Dutch Proverb


The generous man gives and lives a life; the miser hoards himself till death.

- Ghostwise

The Law Of The Jungle.

(I accepted an invitation to go to the Jungle and must learn its law.)

The Law of the Jungle

Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip;
drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting,
and forget not the day is for sleep.

The Jackal may follow the Tiger,
but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter --
go forth and get food of thine own.

Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle --
the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent,
and mock not the Boar in his lair.

When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle,
and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken --
it may be fair words shall prevail.

When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack,
ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel,
and the Pack be diminished by war.

The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
and where he has made him his home,
Not even the head Wolf may enter,
not even the Council may come.

The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
but where he has digged it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message,
and so he shall change it again.

If ye kill before midnight, be silent,
and wake not the woods with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop,
and your brothers go empty away.

Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates,
and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing,
and seven times never kill Man!

If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker,
devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest;
so leave him the head and the hide.

The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack.
Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away
of that meat to his lair, or he dies.

The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf.
He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permission,
the Pack may not eat of that Kill.

Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling.
From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten;
and none may refuse him the same.

Lair-Right is the right of the Mother.
From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter,
and none may deny her the same.

Cave-Right is the right of the Father --
to hunt by himself for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack;
he is judged by the Council alone.

Because of his age and his cunning,
because of his gripe and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open,
the word of your head Wolf is Law.

Now these are the Laws of the Jungle,
and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law
and the haunch and the hump is -- Obey!

by Rudyard Kipling - from The Jungle Book


The Law of the Jungle is no cruel and much fairer than the Law of Man.

- Ghostwise

The Moon And Her Wondrous Tale.

(Yesterday, I revisited Li Bai's Drinking Alone Under The Moon. Picture - Morning Moon In Lucky Valley, Pahang.)

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth.

- Joseph Addison, in the "Spectator"


The moon is at her full, and riding high,
Floods the calm fields with light.
The airs that hover in the summer sky
Are all asleep to-night.

- William Cullen Bryant, The Tides


The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose.

- Lord Byron


The moon's beauty
Is best appreciated in silence.

- Ghostwise

Do Not Ask Questions Of Fairy Tales.

(Today I saw a fairy tale.)

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

- C.S. Lewis


Just because you're grown up, does not means you do not need fairy tales. Because you're grown up, you're even more in need of fairy tales.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Do not ask questions of fairy tales”

- Jewish Proverb


Fairies will never appear if you do not believe in them.

- Ghostwise

You Can Do Worse Than Marry A Gardener.

(Today I did a bit of gardening after my plumbing failed and flooded the bathroom. These are orchids from my garden.)

I have found, through years of practice, that people garden in order to make something grow; to interact with nature; to share, to find sanctuary, to heal, to honor the earth, to leave a mark. Through gardening, we feel whole as we make our personal work of art upon our land.

- Julie Moir Messervy, The Inward Garden,


A gardener is an artist of the land.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.

- Vita Sackville-West, 1892 - 1962


You can do worse than to marry a gardener.

- Ghostwise

Did You Vote In A Lizard?

(Yesterday I saw a lizard crossing the road. All the cars halted to let it pass.)

“At noon in the desert a panting lizard waited for history, its elbows tense, watching the curve of a particular road as if something might happen.”

- William Stafford


The lizard thinks it has all the time in the world to wait,
Or it thinks something is going to happen soon.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” [Ford Prefect]
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” [Arthur Dent]
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

– Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish


Did you vote for a lizard?
Or did you vote for the other lizard?

- Ghostwise

We Drove Our Gentle Mother From The Land.

(Today I tried to get closer to Nature. Morning mist in Lucky Valley, Pahang.)

Nature, the Gentlest Mother
-Emily Dickinson

Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,--
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

~~~~~~~~~~"

We drove our Mother
From the valley to the sea,
From the forest to the hill,
Till there was no place she could go.
She shed bitter tears on the barren land
And drowns us all.

- Ghostwise

We Cannot Forget Sleep In Food.

(Three days after returning home, I'm still sleep deprived.)

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth


We can forget food in sleep,
But we cannot forget sleep in food.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.

- Fran Lebowitz


Life is hazy motion, a blur.
Life is food without taste.
Life is emotion without edge.
Life is meaningless without sleep.

- Ghostwise

Took My Mother-In-Law To The Airport.

(Newark airport, New York - Think I'll stay away from airports for a while.)

“Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport”

- Henry Youngman


But the trip back was hell, she followed me back.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

“It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "As pretty as an airport" appear”

- Douglas Adams


Only in the language of Hollywood in the form of Catherine Zeta Jones in "The Terminal".

- Ghostwise

Leaving On A Jet Plane.

(Have never taken so many flights or fly so far in a week. Think I'll stay away from aeroplanes for a while).

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

- John Denver


I'm leaving on a jet plane
And I won't be returning on a slow boat.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

So we'll open the throttle and gather speed,
For an Airman's life is a life indeed,
As the engine roars away;
Gone are the cares of the earth below,
As up through a gap in the clouds we go,
With an ever-increasing sway.

- AC Kermode, in Mechanics of Flight, 1956


The one flying the plane
And the one sitting cramped inside
May have different feelings about the same flight.

- Ghostwise

You'll Know When It Is Time To Go Home.

(It is good to be back home.)

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I'm lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm I've got to go home

- Christina Conseco


Some places it may take a week
Some places two
Some places a month maybe more
But there always comes a time
When I long - to go home.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

- John Howard Payne


Somehow, I always sleep sweeter,
In my own bed, In my own home.

- Ghostwise

There Cannot Be An American Solution To Every Problem.

(Ghostwise is taking a break. It is going to "the land of the free" for a week and hope to find that their people thinks and behaves differently from their government. See you when I get back.)

“We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient; that we are only 6 percent of the world's population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity; and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy


The United States is a great country but it will only be a great country if it remembers it is one of the countries of the World.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

- Alexis de Tocqueville


Once many nations considered America great. Now many nations don't even consider America good.

- Ghostwise

All True Religion Starts From Compassion.

(Some kind souls came to seek compassion for others at my door.)

There is no substitute for a direct concern for other people as the basis of morality.

- Thomas Nagel


Being religious without being compassionate is just following a ritual.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.

- Arnold Toynbee


If you've compassion, rest assure. You've feelings for others beside yourself.

- Ghostwise

Nothing I Never Said Ever Did Me Any Harm.

(Today I ponder about silence in silence.)

"I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm. "

- Calvin Coolidge


That did not mean what others said about me cannot harm me if I said nothing.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself."

- Harvey Fierstein


I define myself in silence.

- Ghostwise

Statistics Said Birthdays Make You Live Longer.

(My head is still swimming with the wine I drank in the birthday party.)

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.

- Larry Lorenzoni


This time statistics did not lie.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.

- Plautus


I toasted with red wine but the sweet words, I keep to myself.

- Ghostwise