Category: Literature

“Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. 
This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.” 
Sloan Wilson

It is not the large things that send a man to the mad house.
No it is the continuing series of small things (tragedies), that send a man to the mad house. 
Not the death of his love, but a shoelace that snaps.
Charles Bukowski

The Shoelace

a woman, a
tire that’s flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard…
it’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he’s ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…
no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left …
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there –
license plates or taxes
or expired driver’s license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,
the president doesn’t care and the governor’s
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill’s up and the market’s
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out –
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it’s
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they’re
your friends;
there’s always that and worse;
leaky faucet, christ and christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady’s purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and china and russia and america, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
pot, except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over.
Charles Bukowski

Successophobia:
The fear if one is success
Then one’s personal needs will be forgotten
and one will no longer have
one’s childish needs catered to.
Dougslas Coupland

The egoism is the ladder climbed by the creatures of God:
They must fall from this ladder in the end.
The higher one goes, the more foolish he is, 
For his bones will be worse broken.
Rumi

Arrogance and Humility
“If by degrees you do not run away from worldly fortune, autumn will come over this spring of yours.
After all, how should East and West, which are not permanent, make any one enduring?
You take pride in the fact that people, from fear and bondage, have become your flatterers for a few days.
When people bow in adoration to any one, they are really pouring poison into his soul.
When his adorer turns away from him, he knows that adoration was poisonous and destructive to him.
Alas for the one who became like a mountain from arrogance!
Know that this pride is a killing poison; that fool was intoxicated by a poisonous wine…
When an unhappy wretch drinks the poisonous wine, he nods his head in delight for one moment.
After one moment, the poison falls on his spirit: the poison exercises complete sway over his spirit.
When one King gains the upper hand over another King, he kills him, or confines him to a dungeon.
But if he find a fallen, wounded man, the King will make a bandage for him, and bestow gifts on him.
Why did he kill the vanquished King?… How did he treat the helpless man so kindly?
No highwayman ever attacked a beggar…
The broken, contrite one will be saved. Be thou broken. Safety lies in poverty: enter into poverty.
How should anything that is level with the earth become a target for arrows? Consider!
But if it raises its head from the earth, then, like targets, it will suffer irremediable blows.
This egoism is the ladder climbed by the creatures of God: they must fall from this ladder in the end.
The higher any one goes, the more foolish you are, for your bones will be more broken.”

Rumi (Vol.4 2740-2764)

Always apply yourself with both hands to seeking.
For searching is an excellent guide on the way.
Rumi

“Her kim ki bu girişten gizlice veya dinsizce zor kullanarak geçer,
başına çok kötü şeylerin geleceğini bilmelidir.
Zira buranın büyük bekçisi olarak,
insanların kendisinden kaçamayacakları ve kendisine karşı koyamayacakları bir tanrısal görüntü görevli kılınmıştır.”
Kral Antiochos

“Her kim ki -iyi işler yaparken koyu bilgisizlik sonucu kirli durumda buraya gelir- 
doğru yoldan sapmış ayağını kutsal topraklara basarsa, tanrıların ve tanrılaşmış ataların ortak evinde olduğunu anlar anlamaz,
 hemen geri dönmeli, kutsal olmayan bir yere kaçmalı ve kötülüğünü düzelten korku içinde, istemeden yaptığı bu lekeden kendisini arındırmalıdır.”
Kral Antiochos

Kendimizle insanlar arasına bir sadelik siperi koymak; onları tabiilik kadar şaşırtan bir şey yoktur.
Daudet

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge,
fitter for execution than for counsel,
and fitter for new projects than for settled business.
F. Bacon