Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
EppsNet Archive: Life
In Praise of the Fighters
Those who are weak don’t fight. Those who are stronger might fight for an hour. Those who are stronger still might fight for many years. The strongest fight their whole life. They are the indispensable ones. — Bertolt Brecht Read more →
Problems
I attribute my own problems to the trials of life. I attribute the problems of others to their personalities. Read more →
Your Time is Limited
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. — Steve Jobs Read more →
The Meaning of Life
LUCY: You know what your trouble is, Charlie Brown? The whole trouble with you is you don’t understand the meaning of life. CHARLIE BROWN: Do you understand the meaning of life? LUCY: We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. — Charles Schulz Read more →
Aside
Open-ended question: How do we live a life we can’t hold on to?
. . . you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. — Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
Nothing Materialises
“Don’t you find yourself getting bored?” she asked of her sister. “Don’t you find, that things fail to materialise? Nothing materialises! Everything withers in the bud.” “What withers in the bud?” asked Ursula. “Oh, everything–oneself–things in general.” — D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love Read more →
Fault and Change
Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be? — Carlos Miceli Read more →
Epilogue
The floods, the flames, the questions– till the ashes tell you one day: “Life is the building of bridges over rivers that seep away.” — Gottfried Benn, “Epilogue” Read more →
Fathers Day
The joy of Father’s Day is the joy of every day: the gift of being in the company of your children, and of living for them in the way you are meant to live . . . — Jeffrey Goldberg Read more →
What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now. — Buddha
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. — Alfred Korzybski
The Star Thrower
As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up to the youth, he asked why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish,” countered the other. “How can your effort make any difference?” The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and threw it to safety in the waves. “It makes a difference to this one,” he said. — Loren C. Eiseley, The Star Thrower Read more →
Laughter is the Medicine of Life
You Don’t Count, You’re Not on TV
There’s this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what’s immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what’s right around them is unimportant. And that’s why they’re lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you’re just a kind of an object. You don’t count. You’re not what they’re looking for. You’re not on TV. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
Painting Your Masterpiece
If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you. — Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball Read more →
The Best Years of Your Life
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny. — Albert Ellis Read more →
Gerry Rafferty, 1947-2011
Just one more year and then you’ll be happy . . . If that doesn’t sum up what life is all about, I don’t know what does. Just one more year till I lose some weight, gain some weight, get married, get divorced, get out of school, go back to school, get pregnant, get the kids out of the house, get a job, quit my job, etc., etc., etc. Then I’m really going to start living! R.I.P. Gerry Rafferty. Read more →
I’ll Be Leaving
At least half of your mind is always thinking, I’ll be leaving; this won’t last. It’s a good Buddhist attitude. It prepares you for life as a Buddhist. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I’m just sad. — Anne Carson Read more →