The Other Side of the Lake

At man’s core there is a voice that wants him never to give in to fear. But if it is true that in general man cannot give in to fear, at the very least he postpones indefinitely the moment when he will have to confront himself with the object of his fear... when he will no longer have the assistance of reason as guaranteed by God, or when he will no longer have the assistance of God such as reason guaranteed. It is necessary to recoil, but it is necessary to leap, and perhaps one only recoils in order to leap better. ~ Georges Bataille (1897–1962), French novelist & critic. Quoted in: “Two Values of Sade in Bataille’s Text”.

History Some people believe that without history, our lives amount to nothing. At some point we all have to choose: do we fall back on what we know, or do we step forward to something new? It's hard not to be haunted by our past. Our history is what shapes us... what guides us. Our history resurfaces time after time after time. So we have to remember sometimes the most important history is the history we’re making today. Wounds What's worse? New wounds which are so horribly painful or old wounds that should've healed years ago and never did? Maybe our old wounds teach us something. They remind us where we've been and what we've overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future. That's what we like to think. But that's not the way it is, is it? Some things we just have to learn over and over and over again. Disappearances Disappearances happen in science. Disease can suddenly fade away, tumors go missing, and we open someone up to discover the...

G od, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Beauty All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory - of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty. Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), French poet. Curiosités Esthétiques,“Salon of 1846,” sct. 18 (1868; repr. in The Mirror of Art, ed. by Jonathan Mayne, 1955). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Charm All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Erskine, in The Portrait of Mr. W. H., ch. 1 (first published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July 1889). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Admiration Bad artists always admire each other’s wo...

I have come to believe that love happens. And when it does, it gets you whether you want it or not, like it or not. It almost seems as if it gives you a high, an energy that makes you think that whatever you have thought for yourself is right, what you have imagined will lead you to where we have dreamed to be one day. When love grows on you, it makes you believe that boundaries don’t exist, 'You and I' becomes 'Us', and that makes you sacrifice things that you never thought you were capable of living without, to the point that it starts reflecting in your identity. It’s all very surreal really. But what do you do when you realize your short comings as a couple? What do you do when all that emotional drama and ecstasy doesn’t last and all the magic fades away? The politically correct answer would be to pretend to ignore it. Because we are raised to keep trying to work things out. Even when you know you are jumping into the fire, you are obligated to try. So, most of the...

Anger I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me. E. B. White (1899–1985), U.S. author, editor. Interview in Writers at Work (Eighth Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1988). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Passion Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within. George Meredith (1828–1909), English author. Modern Love, Sonnet 43 (1862). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Aesthetics I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind, played by these connoisseurs, these mandarins who “appreciate” beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There’s no such thing. I never “appreciate,” any more than I “like.” I love or I hate. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Spanish artist. Quoted in: Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso, pt...

The future shrinks Whether the past Is well or badly spent. We shape our lives Although their forms Are never what we meant. ~ Dana Gioia from Interrogations at Noon