Reflections on Life

LOT

Please take her.

ABRAHAM’S SON

Rope pull. It tightens,

My fingers curl.

Traction against my skin, like soft rubber

rope’s hairs rub up against my skin.

GOD IS DEAD

 

God is dead.

No, God is here.

This child is not dead,

Cold and rubbery, dangling without movement.

But she cannot be dead,

In this moment, she is not dead.

She is still mine.

Ambulance arrives.

Zipper unzipps.

This is not happening.

God is not dead.

LIFE IS A WAVE

Visualise a vast ocean.
Choose a wave.
Give it a name.
The pleasure as it grows.
Such attachment.
The wave slows.
Start worrying.
Mourne woefully as it returns to nothingness.

LONGING

West Lake on Saturday;
Tieling sunshine in winter.
How I longed to leave.
Left. Nothing.
Oh West Lake on a Saturday.
Tieling sunshin in winter.
Monglian Steppes;
Baobab trees.
How I long to see.
Mongolian Steppes; and
Baobab trees.

EPICURUS:

“Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness”

“And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.”

“Foolish, therefore, is the person who says
           that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes,
           but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no
           annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in
           the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is
           nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come,
           and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then,
           either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is
           not and the dead exist no longer.”

“Much worse is he
           who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one
           is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For
           if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life?”

 

 

 

yks tuhat paths to generosity

1. Generosity demands very little; generosity demands everything.
2. No one is picked out, no one is left out. Generosity is never partisan.
3. Try tipping the scales of life in someone else’s favour.
4. Generosity blunts the sting on unkindness in others.
5. Life is an adventure in giving.
6. Resolve never to give up on anybody.
7. Everywhere there is something incredible waiting to be shared.
8. Generosity is a spontaneous expression of enthusiasm.
9. Generosity is like a treasure chest that grants wishes.
10. Whether people like us or not dependso n how much we think of them.
11. Forgive people who have witnessed you making mistakes.
12. Seek to turn the tide when others are at their lowest ebb.
13. Only great souls know the grandeur there is in charity (Jacques Benigne Bossuet).
14. Endeavour to share others’ interests, not just your own.
15. Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate, and generous- not just to some people in some circumstances- but to everyone all the time. (Thomas J Watson Sr.
16. Take the feathre out of your own cap to help someone else fly.
17. Generosity is always asking the question, “How can I make you happy?”
18. A generous person always sends someone away happier than whent hey arrived.
19. Generosity is like looking through a wide-angle lens that allows you a view of the whole of humanity.
20. Lavishness lasts until the money runs out, but generosity lasts a lifetime.
21. Refuse to make your mind up about somebody just because they have made up about you.
22. All growth requires a temporary surrender of ego.
23. Aim to put more into the world than you take out.
24. There’s one thing that money can’t buy- generosity.
25. There are many things that the world can do without, but generosity is not one of them.
26. Take a spiritual journey toward someone else’s heart.
27. What better excuse to be better, than to better someone else with generosity?
28. History consists of those actions in the past that have shouted loud enough to be remembered in the future; generosity has spoken with a quieter voice but is woven into the fabric of time.
29. Generosity is tenderness.
30. There’s always enough generosity to go round.
31. Generosity is watering someone else’s garden when you could be watering your own.
32. Always wait your turn even when there isn’t enough to go around.
33. Practice justice without requiring justice.
34. We all possess a natural will to help others but it cannot blossom without being nurtured.
35. I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness (Charles Dickens).
36. Noone is so undeserving that a generous mind cannot find something to offer them.
37. The secret of generosity is when you use your extra energy to help someone else, rather than to get to the top first.
38. Generosity is not just something you do in your spare time.
39. Are you always the first to say sorry?
40. Allow yourself to become submertged in the ocean of your benevolence.
41. Be smart if you can, funny if you want to, but be generous- that is essential.
42. Anythign that lifts another person is generous.
43. The most generous thing you can do for someoen is not to share your riches, but to guide them towards their own.
44. Recognise that money is not a solution for every problem.
45. Generosity is the only thign we can be good at without practicing first.
46. Be the sunshine that allows virtue to grow.
47. Somwehwere between gfrugality and lavishness is generosity.
48. Give with no strings attached.
49. Generosity is a beautiful garden without walls.
50. A world without generosity is no more imaginable than a year without its seasons. (Singapore?)
51. Arise cheerfully and live the day in happy readiness to be generous.
52. Generosity is the real imracle out of which all other miracles grow.
53. Use generosity like a net of love by which you can catch hearts and souls.
54. How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world (Anne Frank).
55. Generosity cannot live alone.
56. Gnerosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do. (Kahlil Gibran).
57. When you take something out of your mind and leave it in someone else’s heart, it is called generosity.
58. Take the time to conceivve of the best in others.
59. The purest expression fo trust is a generous endeavor.
60. Give even when you stand to lose out as a result.
61. The generous person finds their peace and then passes it on.
62. It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in an other to accept (Samuel Richardson).
63. You can’t fake generosity. It shows.
64. That’s what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing (Simone Beuvoir).
65. You are the sum total of all that you give.
66. Do you have a heart taht is open all hours?
67. Aspire to move mountains for others, even though afterward they might block your view.
68. Make generosity a ruling passion in your life.
69. Do not wait for people to be friendly- show them how instead.
70. Be slow to take and quick to give.
71. Whomever you meet, always try to put them at their ease.
72. It is better to be exploited once by someone who does not merit your genersity than to play safe 99 times by offering nothing.
73. Generosity is always simple; if it comes with gimmicks it is also likely to come with conditions.
74. Generosity is leadership- leading by example.

(Page 46)