“People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. What can we call our own except energy, strength and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favour.”

— Goethe

– Do you like me at all?
– Yes, I like you.
– A lot?
– (Pause) Yes.
– Good. Don’t stop.

“A Girl Scout is clean in thought, word, and deed.

It’s easy to be clean on the outside. All you need is soap and water and a scrubbing brush. It’s harder to be clean on the inside.”

— From Junior Girl Scout Handbook

“In the land of the lotus eaters time plays tricks on you. One day you are dreaming, the next your dream has become your reality. It was the best of times, if only someone had told me. Mistakes were made, hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned. My family goes on without me while I drown in a sea of pointless p****. I don’t know how I got here, but here I am; rotting away in the California sun. There are things I need to figure out – for her sake at least. The clock is ticking, the gap is widening. She won’t always love me, no matter what.”

— Hank Moody in Californication

Imagine the mind being lost in others’ minds, which are as lost, if not more so… You walk through the glass doors, ask the red-haired guy to show you the book you were looking for… You pick it up, browsing through it all before opening the first page which reads:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, the names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! My last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones, And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

“One Art,” from The Complete Poems 1927-1979, by Elizabeth Bishop

You can’t believe what you just read, so you read it again and again and once again… You walk out the same doors thinking these words are the best thing that could happen to you at that moment… The lost moment of despair… The moments you miss, but then you realize the art of losing is not too hard to master!

S

“People need to see that, far from being an obstacle, the world’s diversity of languages, religions and traditions is a great treasure, affording us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others.”

— Youssou N’Dour – Musician

Today the sun was out when desperation flows right through your eyes… On the other side of the walls, the rest take delight in keeping you in the dark… So today you need to make up for your recent loss… The loss you gave up on with no effort, to turn it into your dream life…

Today the sun shines and the moon will be half at night… Tonight I’ll stay calm and dare to dream a dream life…

S