I was reading about the British MP Lord Drayson, who has resigned to follow his dream of taking part in the Le Mans race. How wonderful to have a imagination, a personal goal to nurture and even more wonderful to be able to give everything else up in order to pursue it!
Nelson Mandela said "There is no passion to be found playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one we are capable of living"
What a pity when we settle to live small, confined, narrow lives where we realise only the smallest fraction of our potential. We start by wanting happiness and conclude that it lies in safety. And then give up every chance of happiness in the search for safety... until safety becomes our only goal.
Do I hear someone say something about circumstances, responsibilities, practicalities....?
Saturday 10 November, 2007
Tuesday 6 November, 2007
Who reads us?
A blog is the most public of private places. A stray comment left by a reader serves to remind me of the vast amounts of traffic that finds and dismisses, or enjoys, the words and thoughts put down here.
Who reads this? Why do I, why do all of us write?
Mostly because writing is happiness. But nothing answers this more aptly than the following words by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 'The Custom House' , The Scarlet letter in 1850.
This is an edited excerpt:
'When he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him.......As if the printed word, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it.....
But-- as thoughts are frozen and utterance, benumbed unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience- it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk. '
Who reads this? Why do I, why do all of us write?
Mostly because writing is happiness. But nothing answers this more aptly than the following words by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 'The Custom House' , The Scarlet letter in 1850.
This is an edited excerpt:
'When he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him.......As if the printed word, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it.....
But-- as thoughts are frozen and utterance, benumbed unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience- it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk. '
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