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

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

The Pearl,

(Last night I stayed in a hotel called Pearl View looking across at Penang, our "Pearl Of The Orient". Today's post is about pearl.)

“Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase”

- John Balguy


It is said the best pearl is produced in a calm sea.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“In the town they tell the story of the great pearl—how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man’s mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in people’s hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere."

“If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it..."

- John Steinbeck ("The Pearl")


If you found a pearl of great value and thought it a curse of bad luck, would you throw it back into the sea?

- Ghostwise

At Five, Your Son Is Your Master.

“Your son at five is your master, at ten your slave, at fifteen your double, and after that, your friend or your foe, depending on his bringing up”

- Anonymous

And it is all because of you.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice”

- Anonymous


He follows - good or bad,
Whether he loves or hates,
He follows - good or bad.

- Ghostwise