Life in a Boolean
Highs AND Lows
To be OR, not to be
Journey NOT destination
NAND: Times when at least something goes right
XOR – Times when you are left with only Sophie’s choice
NOR: When all is lost, hope remains
Map of Your Heart
…when the day came
that tepid fears made for muddled sight,
the direction home was always clear.
– A 2013 thoughtsontheater post
Anticipation
Swaying idly on a swing by the Maple tree, I wait
The summer breeze whispers gently into my ears
Of news of your homecoming.
Little do the cold winds know
My soul has long left,
Traversing half way round the world
In search of you.
You
In you is the illusion of each day.
You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers.
You undermine the horizon with your absence.
Eternally in flight like the wave.
– Pablo Neruda
Last Stand
I sense a storm rising in the distance
I feel a chill passing through my bones
Holding my ground, I stand still.
A cold wind blows across my cheeks
The ground under me cracks
Mustering my resolve, I stand still.
Shrieking waves are dashing the rocky shores
The world is shattering around me
Clinging to hope, I stand still.
I stand still praying I still stand.
Dancing with Destiny
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
– Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
With you by my side
The day Earth stands still
Even as we we fall off the face of the Earth,
I know I am safe, with you at my side.
The day the Sun goes on a vacation
Even when we are plunged into darkness,
I know I’ll never be lost, with you on my side.
The day the Milky way vaporizes
Even as we turn into dust,
I know we’ll rule the skies forever
With you by my side.
Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!
– Rocky Balboa
The resilient heart
On irrelevance
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
– Edgar Allan Poe
On Defiance
Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used — not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.
– Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
NotioNation 