Scribbles

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven …

This from yesterday’s Daily Stoic newsletter. I’m quoting it wholly, because short though it may be; it packs such a powerful punch. Your Uber driver is delayed and you want a credit for the inconvenience. Your house is damaged in a storm and you want your insurance to pay for every penny of the repairs. Someone says something pointed and personal at you, and you want them not only to apologize, but to convince you that they never meant it in the first place. ...

It was the hour of four in the afternoon, and already in hillside homesteads the day was nearly done. There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost. It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road… — Florence Bone (1875–1971), The Morning of To‑Day, 1907

Spent yesterday and today doing loads of writing. One was a project for a friend. The other, was another project for me :) So even though, it isn’t here. I’m done :) A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages. Its existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the instant it becomes crystallised. As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is serious in its deepest sense. When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence. — Arthur Schopenhauer ...

The Bridge of Angels (Ponte Sant’Angelo), leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s Castle) It took me a half an hour to slowly traverse it :) It was that beautiful.

Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation’s nakedness Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread … — Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais, 49. ...