Echoing Words

“You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it’s worth something.  Well let me tell you, it’s not worth shit.  Let it go.  Infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“What do you think?  You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you’re alive!  What’s a little pain compared to that?”

“It can’t be so simple.”

“What if it is?”

Nathaniel Fisher and David Fisher
“Six Feet Under”

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

e^iπ + 1 = 0

Leonhard Euler

One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there’s nothing but unanswered pain. That death’s got the final word, it’s laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory, feels something smiling through it.

Pvt. Witt
“The Thin Red Line”

Life is a moment between two eternities.

Blaise Pascal

Here’s to the roses and lilies in bloom,
You in my arms and I in your room.
A door that is locked, a key that is lost,
A bird and a bottle, and a bed badly tossed,
And a night that is 50 years long.

Herb Caen

But me I just bear up to my bewildered best
And some folks even seen the bear in me

Steven Fromholz
Bears

A guy is walking into his house when he spots a snail on his doorstep. He nonchalantly picks up the snail and tosses it across his driveway.

A couple months have gone by when the guy hears a slight knocking on his front door. He opens the door, and sure enough, there’s the snail looking up at him asking,
“What the hell was that all about?!”

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

Red
“Shawshank Redemption”