The Organ

Organ music has a magical effect on my headaches. I can't really explain it, but the low, vibrating notes seem to expand the blood vessels in my head. Or something.

Anyway, it's one more reason why I love the organ.

Suffering a loss

“Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. 

Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” 

“Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” 

Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” 

He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

~ Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Source

Studying

Time goes by anyway. So why not spend it studying?

Patience

Patience is like dripping water: it accomplishes really big things in really small steps.

Photo by Grianghraf on Unsplash

Water of care

Caring about children is like watering plants: too little makes them dry, too much makes them rotten.

Photo: Unsplash

Questions and answers

An answer puts everything in its proper place, but in a question those proper places are still uncertain and prone to change. An illusion of freedom.

Life choices

How many times, when I regretted not doing something, I wished so badly to be able to replay the situation or to get a similar chance. 

But on thinking again, could I have really done anything differently under those past circumstances?

And being completely frank, would I really do anything so much differently if I was faced with a similar situation these days?

Well, maybe.

At least, I hope so.

Becoming an adult

Children consume and have no responsibility for what they do.

Adults create and have responsibility for their actions.

Being an adult may be more challenging (and indeed many adults would like to keep a child-like lifestyle), but eventually, it's much more satisfying and empowering.

Forever learning

Those who insist they have nothing more to learn are the ones who need to learn the most.

You and the other

It's easy to have good ideas when you're alone.

But then the other arrives, and suddenly everything you thought was good, and correct, and proper gets challenged.

And with that, it can only become better - if you allow it to.

To make a mistake

To make a mistake, to be wrong means to get closer to the truth as well.

Courage

It's easy to fight without being afraid. It's also easy to be afraid and avoid fighting. But to be afraid and still fight - that's what takes real courage.

~ Adapted from The Four Just Men (a 1950s TV show)

Mass production

Mass production requires and generates uniformity in the world that, by its nature, is not uniform. How uniform can we get before we lose the world?

Success

A truly successful career does not pursue goals of future success.

If you enjoy and find meaning in the job you're doing right now, it's already a success.

Unrequited love

Unrequited love is a promise of the real one. It feels painful, like a promise of a place you can never get to. 

And the real love, on the contrary, feels very natural, like you're already where you want to be, like it's nothing special, - because, at last, you've arrived home safely. 

Prometheus and his liver

It's curious how this myth resonates with the harmful effects of eating too much fire-processed food.

A reversed way of fighting temptations

The usual reaction: I'm going to quit it forever, but now I'll just have it one last time.

The reversed reaction: I might do it again in the future, but not right now.

Artificial paradox

The great paradox of the modern world: Artificial materials and products are cheaper and easier to buy than natural materials and products.

There's a Russian saying that translates approximately as a fish searches where it's deeper and a man searches where it's better. But it should be a man searches where it's easier. People tend to go the easiest way available, and the artificial industry offers that easy way out. 

However, breaking the rules of nature causes problems that are 'solved' with new 'developments' of industry that cause new problems, making another turn in the vicious circle. That's how what was initially supposed to make people's lives easier keeps making them more complicated the further we drift away from the natural world.

Chores

Doing the chores is often taught as something difficult and unpleasant, a continuous nuisance to deal with. This creates a 'family tradition' of hating the chores.

However, chores are a privilege I have in life and my way of playful transformation of my world. 

Think of all the people who have no house to clean, no clothes to wash, no food to remove the remainder of from the crockery. Think of all the people who have no arms to do the cleaning or no legs to take out trash.

Being able to do the chores is the royal privilege of living a full life.

The QF Attitude

Looking for a 'Quick Fix': the result is more important than the process. The faster, the better.

This leads to frustration: you get only an occasional 'prize enjoyment moment' instead of loving it all the way.

And then, you never go too deep about it.

True love takes decades to mature and then decades to savor.