Every Once In A While Blog

I love quotes like the ones below. I simply love them. What many (including myself) would take pages to write about, these people could in a few words.

"Although potential leaders are born, effective leaders are made" - Bennie E. Goodwin

"Be not afraid of greatness! Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" - Shakespeare

"You see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and ask ‘Why not?’ - George Bernard Shaw

"Strong people always have strong weaknesses too" - Peter Drucker

"Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" - Alfred Lord Tennyson

"We all share in the glory and tragedy of being human"
- John Stott

Luciano Pavarotti died of pancreatic cancer. He was 71. Even the King of the High ‘C’s dies. No one is spared. No one. I never gave much thought to it, but when I heard the great Pavarotti is dead, I couldn’t believe it. Not that I really loved the guy, but I in a sense took his life for granted. He was famous, rich, with a glorious voice…yet he dies. I don’t know how else to explain it but this famous man who captured the hearts and attention of so many stopped living. His lifeless body is somewhere, but his life i gone. His flame snuffed out.
    I’m reminded of the brevity of human life. The fragility of human life. "10 out of 10 die". That’s the ultimate statistic. The truth. It’s, in a way, correct to say that we’re all dying. "Every heartbeat is the the drumbeat to your own funeral march" I recall someone saying.
    With death comes a torrent of important questions. Afterlife? Heaven? Hell? God or no God? Legacy? etc. It’s good to think about such things, gloomy as it may be. Cause I think these times are moments of clarity where we realize what matters and what doesn’t. What’s the real and what’s not. Better seize such moments before we slip back into our own subjective realities.

Like this song. From the musical "Rent".

ALL:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes,

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Moments so dear.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights

In cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure

A year in the life?

How about love?

How about love?

How about love?
Measure in love

Seasons of love.
Seasons of love

HOMELESS WOMAN:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life

Of a woman or a man?

COLLINS:

In truths that she learned,

Or in times that he cried.

In bridges he burned,

Or the way that she died.

ALL:

It’s time now to sing out,

Tho’ the story never ends

Let’s celebrate

Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love!

Remember the love!

Seasons of love!

HOMELESS WOMAN (while ALL sing):

Oh you got to got to

Remember the love!

You know that love is a gift from up above

Share love, give love spread love

Measure measure your life in love.

This song REALLY tickles me. At the same time I feel it’s the truth about guys. It’s from the song "Guys and Dolls" from the musical of the same name.

When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky
You can bet that he’s doing it for some doll.
When you spot a John waiting out in the rain
Chances are he’s insane as only a John can be for a Jane.
When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent
For a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal.
Call it sad, call it funny.
But it’s better than even money
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.
When you see a Joe saving have of his dough
You can bet there’ll be mink in it for some doll.
When a bum buys wine like a bum can’t afford
It’s a cinch that the bum is under the thumb of some little broad.
When you meet a mug lately out of the jug
And he’s still lifting platinum folderol
Call it hell, call it heaven
But it’s probable twelve to seven
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.

When you see a sport and his cash has run short
Make a bet that he’s banking it with some doll.
When a guy wears tails with the front gleaming white
Who the hell do you think he’s tickling pink on Saturday night?
When a lazy slob takes a goody steady job,
And he smells from vitalis and barbasol.
Call it dumb, call it clever
Ah, but you can get odds forever
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll
Some doll, some doll
The guy’s only doing it for some doll!

On the other hand, this could also be true:
"Behind every successful man, is a woman….waiting to overtake him"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"I go to work because I have a job that’s part of a career, which is part of a profession that I do because of my vocation that is the shape of my life" - Martin Marty

Employment is not necessarily work. Work is not necessarily employment.

By the way, VOCATION: late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin vocatio(n-), from vocare ‘to call’. = CALLING

I have an idea. Why not invent a microwave cooler, after the microwave oven? Make your favourite beverages ice cold in 30 seconds…no? Ok, so maybe microwaves may not do the trick, but then…

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein

Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry of many kinds…gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare….Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music….I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did….My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts…. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
- Charles Darwin

It is a divine gift to us men and women. That is, the ability to know AWE & WONDER. May I, we, not lose this ‘emotional part of our nature’.

*Especially for all you science students out there.

How do you describe a person with integrity? Integrated?

There are two things in life that you are sure to lose if you speak of it…

SILENCE & HUMILITY.

And we need more of both.
Funny but true. So sometimes it’s best to just…ZIP IT!