Some are just better able to deal with the daily punches of life

Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair, or f**king beatings.
The world ends when you’re dead, until then, you got more punishment in store.
Stand it like a man, and give some back.

- Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) on HBO show Deadwood; S02 E07.

Peace isn't just a feeling - it's a currency

 If it costs your peace, it’s too expensive.

You Have to Make Hay while the Sun Shines

 Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them – Ann Landers.

How many do you smoke? Well, at the moment I’m down to 2 lighters a day.

What is this thing you call substance abuse?
All I wanna do is forget and get loose.
Drinking and smoking over and over
What's so great about a life that's sober?

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Words, Beautiful Words

"Change breaks the brittle." – Jan Houtema

"Don't fear moving slowly. Fear standing still." – Chinese proverb

"However little television you watch, watch less." – David McCullough

"It's easier to win an argument with a genius than an idiot." – Gurwinder Bhogal

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." – Annie Dillard

"Anybody who cares less about wanting to be cool, I think, is more interesting." – Aimee Mann

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." – Charles Kingsley

Ineffable

There is always a tendency to lavish words upon what cannot be described, in the hope that some of them might stick – a little like throwing paint in the direction of The Invisible Man in order to make him out. 

~ Lionel Bailly, 2009, p. 98

May the 4th

          “Do or do not. There is no try”

Denouement

       There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part.

       So just give me a happy middle. And a very happy start.

 

Java

“Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.” - David Lynch

Stop watching. Start doing

More content is loaded on to YouTube in 60 days than has ever been broadcast in America for 60 years.

"I'm offended" ~ 21st Century

Those who are determined to be 'offended' will discover a provocation somewhere.
We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics.
And it is degrading to make the attempt.

Christopher Hitchens

Don’t Wrestle your Fears into Submission

 

Life Gets Better Together

 

 

It’s very hard to be proud of your sexuality when it hasn’t brought you any joy. Once it’s associated with joy and love it’s easy to be proud of who you are. The first time you actually believe somebody loves you it’s a wonderful moment in your life ~ George Michael
                                                                 
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Little by little, a little becomes a lot...I hope

The grind to get to where I want to be is utterly relentless. Laziness may pay off now, but hard work has a future. I think I need to subscribe more to the adage of "enjoying the journey", and make the goal secondary. Hard though.

 

Testing times. 

An Ounce of Prevention

 

To guard adolescents against high risk behaviours such as substance abuse, they need to be surrounded by the right environment, a cohesive-supportive family, positive adult role-models, and schools that respond to the student's academic and social needs.

 

Benjamin Franklin ~ 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'

Your Football Team

"A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there’s one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion."

 

~ Pablo Sandoval - El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret In Their Eyes).

 

Definitely one of the best crime films I've ever seen. A 2009 movie, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

The above quote tied in with the criminals love for his local football team, and the words ring so true. But football fans in general seem to have this idea that they couldn't have supported any other team. And I would include myself in that too. The thoughts of supporting anyone other than Manchester United just seems ridiculous. Frightening in fact.

Now unless you come from a household with a father, mother or older siblings who supported a certain team, yes you're probably going to be influenced by them and moulded by that environment. But it's a myth to think that you couldn't have supported any other team. It was just what you were exposed to in that time of your life. At that particular moment that set the tone for the future. The ups and downs. Downs mainly if you're currently supporting Louis Van Gaal and his "philosophy".

However once the choice is pinned down, especially at a young age, it's set for life. There is no going back. And the slagging of other fans and calling them fickle or 'typical', you could have been one of those fans yourself if the path was different. I mean if you supported that rival team, would you suddenly be ascribed with these features for choosing to support them?

 

No obviously. But we all assume so.
I do it regularly. And it's just a very strange thing.

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Synecdoche, New York

Going on a high rating from IMDB, I recently viewed Synecdoche, New York, starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Usually I'd be a fan of a film that actually makes you think, but for the life of me, I finished watching it not having a bogs notion of what the hell I had just seen.

But like most films, there is usually one stand out part that sticks out from the rest. And the following funeral monologue spoken by the priest in it, is that part. I found myself replaying it a few times over. It's filled with wonderful life lessons, philosophical undertones, and an almost gut-wrenching realisation of how insignificant one's life actually can be. If you haven't seen it or heard it before, enjoy:

''Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out.

 

...And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really.

 

And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own.

Well, fuck everybody.

Amen.''

The Skills to Pay the Bills

After witnessing the sublime talent of Lionel Messi tonight in the Champions League, one philosopher's words are most attributable,

''Ze zing about Arsenal is zey alvays try to valk in it''

'Talent hits a target no one else can hit, Genius hits a target no one else can see' 

- Arthur Schopenhauer

                                                                                                          

Where do I begin?

'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'
                                                                                         
                                                                                         ~ Lao Tzu