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Lets Listen To Some Music

(I heard music in the rainforest.)

Lets listen to some music -


"Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below."

- Joseph Addison


"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."

-Maya Angelou


"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

- Berthold Auerbach


"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."

- Ludwig van Beethoven


"Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is. "

- Miles Davis

When Was The Last Time You Danced In The Rain?

(I'm going to the World Rainforest Music Festival in Sarawak for a few days.)

“Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain”

- Author Unknown


When was the last time you danced in the rain?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

but now it is the rain Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.

- Alun Lewis


There is something about rain, That arrest us entirely.

- Ghostwise

Find Good Fortune In Dragon's Wings.

(I don't believe in fortune that came a-calling.)

Do not then stand idly waiting,
For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess,
She will never come to you.

- Ellen M. H. Gates (1834 - 1920)


Even when you beat it to her door,
She may not receive you:
For her suitors are many,
And her favors few.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“To attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.”

- Proverb


Why is fortune as hard to find as dragon's wings?

- Ghostwise

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Takes A Holiday.

(Today the going gets tough...)

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

- Knute Rockne


When the going gets tough, I try to remind myself how tough I am.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.

- Salma Hayek


I laugh at Life, Life laughs back.
Who is laughing at whom?
Am I laughing at Life or is Life laughing at me?

- Ghostwise

Forget Regret Or Miss Life.

(I tried not to have regrets in the life I live but sometimes I find they are unavoidable.)

“I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd just been myself.”

- Brittany Renée


If I regret, let me not regret my actions or my reasons for doing them but just their outcome.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.”

- Jonathan Larson


If I must have regrets to live a full life; bring them on, bring them on!

- Ghostwise

May You Always Have A Roof For The Rain.

(The night before, I caught two refugees hiding on my roof. They were not thieves. They did it for love.)

“May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you and all your heart might desire.”

- Irish Blessings


What more does one need?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

“Rain does not fall on one roof alone”

- Proverb


But sometimes we only hear the rain on our roof.

- Ghostwise

A Teacher Is One Who Tries To Make Himself Unnecessary.

(Today, I teach.)

“You are rewarding a teacher poorly if you remain always a pupil.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche


I hope all my students reward me by becoming teachers.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary."

- Thomas Carruthers


When I've made myself unnecessary, it is task accomplished.

- Ghostwise

What The Butterfly & The Flower Have In Common.

("Butterfly Wings" caught on a trip to the jungle. Of the 22, I was the only one gifted with this sight, because - I was looking for a butterfly.)

The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.

- Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun


Flower and butterfly,
What they share in common is beauty,
What they have in common is the gift to delight.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~~

I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

- William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"


I watched you for a full half-hour,
And did not realize a full half-hour has gone by.

- Ghostwise

Busy Making Plans While Life Is Passing By.

(I've been looking at a lot of plans the last few days)

“It's an ill plan that cannot be changed”

- Latin Proverb


I must know Latin for I keep changing plans.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door”

- Confucius


I'm planning long but will that stop trouble knocking at my door?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans”

- John Lennon


I hope Life is not passing me by while I'm busy with my plans.

- Ghostwise

Making The Recent Past Better Than The Past Past.

(Last night, I had a brush with the Past)

"One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort."

- Gaston Bachelard


The past is now part of me, good or bad.
And I would not forsake my past, just because it is sad.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

- Wendell Berry


We cannot escape our past, we can only redefine it by making the recent past sweeter than the past past.

-Ghostwise

The Sparrow's Last Refrain Nests In My Heart.

“Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.”

- Paul Tillich


When you suffer from being alone, that is loneliness.
When you enjoy being alone, that is solitude.
But I believe the one who enjoy solitude,
Has someone to go back to.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“When the sparrow sings its final refrain, the hush is felt nowhere more deeply than in the heart of man.”

- Don Williams, Jr


For he remembers its songs.

- Ghostwise

The Sun Hid In Her Cave When She Deserts The Night.

(When we all crawled into the cave.)

“The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant, interlunar cave.”

- John Milton


I went into a real cave, But
I could just as easily go into an unreal one.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Epimenides was sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when awake, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap.

- Diogenes Laertius


Don't sleep in a cave,
You could wake up fifty-seven years late.

- Ghostwise

Doing Nothing Is Better Than Doing Nothing.

(Today I learned the meaning of bel far niente - "the beauty of doing nothing")

“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing”

- Lao Tzu


You could be reaping the benefits from doing nothing;
Or you could be straining yourself doing nothing.
It is an Art, really.

- Ghostwise

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

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself”

- Zen Proverb


Or you could be one with nothing.
It is Spiritual, really.

- Ghostwise

To Run Or Not To Run? That is the Question.

(Today I've to dissuade someone from running away from home)

“Running away will never make you free”

- Kenny Loggins


Ironical since that the reason why most people run away - to be free.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

“Adventure must start with running away from home”

- William Bolitho


Looks like there is more than one type of running away.

- Ghostwise

I Wanted To Know What I Was Going To Write.

(Waiting... for a story to unfold)

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.

- Vita Sackville-West


A photograph may capture an image but it needs the accompanying words to bring the story to life.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say.

- Sharon O'Brien


You will be the one most surprised by what you have written.

- Ghostwise

We Determine Our Fate By The Way We Live.

(I was told to leave it to fate. I ask shouldn't we try to determine our fate?)

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox


Should we leave our fate to chance, when we could perhaps determine its outcome?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“We create our fate every day we live”

- Henry Miller


I want to tell her that we create our fate every day by the way we live.

- Ghostwise

She Walks The Waters Like A Thing Of Life.

(The boats that carried us up & down Tembeling River.)

She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.

- Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)


She sits in the water, and we sits in her.
She rides the water, and we ride her.
The water is to her what she is to us.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.


We all came from different places, but we trust the same boat to get us to the other side.

- Ghostwise

Many Paths, Same View.

(This is the view of Gunung Tahan and the Tahan Range from Mount Terisek.)

“You can never conquer the mountain. You can only conquer yourself.”

- James Whittaker


That is why we feel so fulfilled, when we reached the top.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same”

- Chinese Proverbs


Did we climb the mountain - for the peak or for the view?

- Ghostwise

The Closest Thing In A Fisherman's Heart.

(Caught this fisherman casting his net in Sungai Tembeling)

Three fishers went sailing away to the west,
Away to the west as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town.

- Charles Kingsley, The Three Fishers


Much though the fishermen professed,
The closest thing in their hearts is not fish.

- Ghostwise

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

May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it.

- Irish Blessing


May the holes in his net be larger than your head.

- Fish Blessing by Ghostwise

The Miles I Traveled, The Things I Saw.

(On the way to Taman Negara, we stopped to smell the flower in Lanchang like this bumblebee.)

The world is a rose; smell it and pass it to your friends.

-Persian Proverb


Your friend is a rose; keep him by your side.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.

-Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)


In the haste to get to the destination, they forgot about the journey.

- Ghostwise.

The Road I Took & The One I Did Not Take.

(This was the road that led us to Kuala Tahan, the gateway to Taman Negara.)

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost


No mater which road I took
I sometimes wonder about the road
- I did not take.

- Ghostwise

I Will Share With My Enemies My Dread Of Bats.

(Last weekend, I went into a dark, wet, slimy, smelly bat cave in Taman Negara.)

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.

Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.

Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!

Not for me!

- DH Lawrence


Bats! Not for me either, especially in a dark cave by the dozens.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

Alfred Pennyworth: Why bats, sir?
Bruce Wayne: Bats frighten me. It's time my enemies share my dread.

- Batman Begins


What they do for Batman, they do more for his enemies.

- Ghostwise

Somewhere Over The Rainbow Lies My Dream.

(Today I saw a rainbow on my way to work and I was happy the rest of the day.)

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Some day I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can't I?

- music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E.Y Harburg


Somewhere over the rainbow
Lies my dream
I've been chasing it ever since
I saw my first rainbow
And my dream.

- Ghostwise

We Carry The River With Us.

(Yesterday, I took a several hours boat ride down Tembeling river for the start of my return home.)

“People who have lost relationships often wonder why they can't just let it be "water under the bridge." It is water under the bridge - the trouble is we do not live on the bridge but in the river of life with its many twists and turns.”

- Grant Fairley


And we carry our experiences, good and bad; down the winding river.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

“What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt - it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else.”

- Hal Boyle

I'm going where the river takes me,
Beyond that, I do not know where I want to go.

- Ghostwise

Adventure Is Without & Within.

(Early tomorrow morning I'll be going to the oldest tropical jungle in Peninsula Malaysia for a few days.)

Adventure is not outside a man; it is within.

- David Grayson


Within or without, Adventure is about going outside the boundary.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

- Rabindranath Tagore


And you can't hear the music of the forest by staring at the trees.

- Ghostwise

Others' Scandals Are Scandalous But Ours Have Reasons.

(Out on the road yesterday, I slept in a hotel where scandal brought down a mighty politician.)



There is a lust in man no charm can tame:
Of loudly publishing his neighbour's shame:
On eagles wings immortal scandals fly,
while virtuous actions are born and die.

- William Harvey


We lecture on other people's scandals
And justify on our own.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

You find out who your real friends are when you're involved in a scandal.

- Elizabeth Taylor


You find them out by the distance they keep.

- Ghostwise

The Leader Leads & The Boss Drives A Mercedes.

(BOSS!!!)

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

- Theodore Roosevelt


The Boss drives - a Mercedes and his staff mad.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Sometimes it is the men 'higher up' who most need revamping – and they themselves are the last to recognize it.”

- Henry Ford


The one who needs the most revamping often ask the most revamping of others.

- Ghostwise

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep.

(Attended a funeral today and I was not sad.)

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

Mary Elizabeth Frye


Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

~~~~~~~~~~"

We did not stand on her grave and weep.
We just stood there and wave goodbye.
For she lived a happy life
Up to ninety and six.

- Ghostwise

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