I took note as I read this book. I was annoyed at first with how long it took me to process each page. I wanted to read faster, read the words and move on but, my mind needed this moment. It didn't want to process the words like fast food. It needed to sit with pages/chapters/sections and show respect for a carefully cooked meal, fine dining, navigate each item on the plate.
I want to take you through my thoughts for words and sections that wouldn't let me slide past when I read them.
Let's begin.
"The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence."
Nature can teach us some much. So much about ourselves, how we should treat each other, and sometimes how to switch up the way we approach life and situations. Like plants, we should plant ourselves in good ground, find good soil, positions ourselves in a place where the sun may reach us. BUT don't forget that roots develop so the plant can produce fruit. Care for your roots. Give them what they need, whatever you do, ensure you don't stop there when tending to yourself - be positioned someplace, any place that sees you bearing fruit. Seek growth factors (soil, a good environment), remember you are a seed (full of potential). Send your radicle downwards (your roots, prepared to learn the fundamentals, be a beginner). Send your shoot upwards (use what you learn to grow, use what you find to build, value people who can act as sunlight and nutrient for your growth), and do this with confidence. Confidence is knowing that you are not where you used to be, it is looking back to see how far you have come, how much you have grown.
"I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust."
After these words, he continues the conversation with self asking, 'how could he consider getting himself a furnished home which would gather further dust, he would rather live out in the open amongst nature which gathers no dust.' The words and the afterthought come together as a reminder for us as humans. We give attention and time to making 'valued' things look great and polished but, we don't give this much attention to the vessel that carries us from day to day. That great vessel is our body, its systems, its compartments, and our mind. The reminder here is to renew your mind, stretch it, teach it, challenge it often or allow it to be challenged by others often. So, that we don't die while those external 'assets' remain without our existence.
I'm going to extrapolate a little here that means I'm going to stretch these words a little beyond their context, but I promise I'll center my thoughts right back into context once I reach my tangent. Let's take these three limestones as mind, body, and soul. All of these are key to your existence, they all react when something is out of balance - the extreme of that imbalance, for example, is dust. Minimal exercise, the wrong foods, minimal sleep, and stress are the body's dust. When these things persist, the body reacts in several ways where pathologies may develop. Limiting environments, limiting people, what you see, what you hear, what you say, and the things that pass the filters of your mind are the dust that settles in your soul. Negative self-talk, bad advice that lingers, overthinking, lack of focus, and not practicing gratitude all act as dust to the mind.
I think these words and afterthoughts are pleading with us to pay attention to ourselves and what we consume and permit in all forms - whether the recipient is our body, our mind, the soul, or our homes. The author pleads with us to water ourselves as we water our plants. To declutter our minds as we take out household trash. To renew our knowledge as we change our sheets & make conscious efforts to improve ourselves as we dust those 'valuable' things.
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"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."
Another call to pay attention to ourselves and feed ourselves with what we need. We need renewal every day. If we didn't need renewal, we would not shed skin cells - the dead lifts and shifts so the new can come to the surface and provide protection. One of the best forms of protection we have against death is to ensure that we don't die before we actually D-I-E. To die, is to assume to have and know all that you will need to know for all your trips around the sun, at any given time. We are always learning. We are learning stillness, learning how to practice gratitude, learning how to live to produce the best we have to give, and learning how to best receive all that others will give to us on this journey. Change is inevitable, participate in the change, be changed, or be the late majority.
Renewal comes with the morning. To stress the importance of this, here are some more of his words "That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way."
"Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them."
There is so much for us to gain from books, from reading. There is so much to challenge our thoughts, feed us and excite us between the pages of a book. There are many genres to choose from - books don't come in a one story fits all situation. We got softbacks, hardbacks, graphics, comics, 11pt font, 16pt font, we got lines that spiral around pages, straight lines of words gathered to take you to another place. The destinations and experiences in a book are endless. Reading nurtures your imagination.
"As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture--genius--learning--wit--books--paintings--statuary--music--philosophical instruments, and the like; so let the village do--not stop short of at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library.."
I guess in simple words, don't die illiterate. Even the college-educated can be illiterate, this occurs when you don't feed your mind with the things outside your field to widen your neural networks, excite your neural connections and open yourself to conversation with a man who can teach you a thing or two about those things you don't fully understand. Read, and read and read until you can read no longer (in death is where that should end). Let us dine with minds both young and old, learn from the lives of those who have written our overcoming, improvement and created paths to growth.
Have breakfast with the Bible in your hands, eat lunch with the works of your favorite philosopher or choose a philosopher and study him. Snack on the words of foreign literature. Have dinner with dictionaries, concordances, encyclopedias, reference books to complete your day's learning.
"Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men."
Like the nobleman who chooses what feeds his (culture, genius, learning, wit) such as books, paintings, statuary instruments, musical instruments, philosophical instruments. We should also start where we are and feed ourselves. Feed what we consider to be our culture, genius, learning, and wit. Enrich yourself with life's resources, walk into life's library and freely loan its material to understand it better.
Instead of aspiring to be men with rich tastes which can be satisfied, how about we bring those rich tastes to our communities and increase their value. Increase their intellect, their education, and encourage their growth. Read like you must finish your TBR list before your last exhale. Consume art like the artists are going on sabbatical and leaving us with nothing new. Let us start where we are with the little or much that we have and feed ourselves. Let us desire to grow in intellect and character.
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"The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can 'see the folks,' and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and 'the blues'; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it."
Many people question those who can thrive in solitude how they do it. Maybe this is due to their view or a mental image creating an environment of punishment, a place where they feel alone, lonely, shut off from the world. The opposite is true. Solitude is a place enjoyed most when you have found a way to sit with your thoughts without them having to babysit you as you scream for somebody to rescue you.
One example of solitude's beauty is in these lines,"..partly with a view to the next day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand."
"I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of the morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them."
To be honest, I'm not policing anybody's preferred form of hydration. I'm just here to remind you to drink your water and mind your business. A wise man knows this is one of the secrets to youth. Keep life simple, so the complications tangle themselves.
"..but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep."
Yes, there is a bias of views coming and I'm not going to hide it either. I am a poet, so it's only natural that I swim in these words - I'm going to act like he's referring to me. I constantly read about the moments that poets experience when writing a piece or the overcoming required to let a piece live and be seen. The moments of deciding to push past the judgments we have towards ourselves, the inability to reach the standard we have set for ourselves. So if you ask, if we ever lose sleep, if we ever work after hours. Yes, poets deserve all the applause for motivating themselves when it is the hardest to write and enjoy moments. They deserve it when figuring out where the words want to go, where they need to go.
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"No wonder the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly."
Express. Yourself. You are a creative being, don't silence those things you were created to share the music to.
Everything from the cochlea of your inner ear loops on itself hoping you will make some noise today. Speak notes 🎜 🎝 🎜 into existence, compose a little song, your heart promises to beat in rhythm while your diaphragm promises to raise each note on your exhales. Your fingers relaxed and extended, waiting for you to give them something to hold, something to mold. Your body is excited, expectant that its function and systems will sustain your beautiful work today. Blood vessels connect like branched networks to ensure all deliveries are on time today, your brain in need of the supplies it brings will sit on conference calls to ensure all lobes and neurons know there is creating to be done & creativity to be expressed.
My prayer for you also is that we (the world, your community, your friends, those you care about) all see the fruits of your labor on those things you have been troubled by and overcome. Those late nights, those drafts, those prototypes. I pray you see the things that have failed, and not see yourself as a failure.
"We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them."
It begins with us. How we translate the body we are given. How we walk through each day. What is the value of a day? What value do eyes hold? You will project onto me the things that have pondered your mind the most if you don't sit with your mind to talk and decide how to handle those things efficiently. Efficiently is by your definition, not what I assume about you or what I want you to think. In a few words, I'm asking you to put some respect on your name. Walk through this life, hungry to translate it beyond the distortions you have created, experienced, or been victim to.
This life is a marathon, be patient with yourself on each street, sidewalk, path, in each circumstance, city, plane, car, and building.
"Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice."
Think about the vastness of our universe from time to time, so you don't cage yourself or cage your thought. Before empires are built by hands, they must be built in minds where everything is tested. Test the strength of what you are building and test the truth of what you tell yourself. Test the voice to finally reach the reality of what YOU want, discarding the things you have been influenced to want. All the physical empires you see may have followed a certain mold, where nothing went outside of the box, created by men limited in their own time by different circumstances or rules. Break the box, use the box for guidance or create a new box where necessary.
