Leaving behind...

"What you leave behind is

not what is engraved

in stone monuments,

but what is woven into

the lives of others."

Pericles,

Greek Statesman

This is exactly how the world remembers a dead man. They leave a part of themselves here on this Earth with us before 'leaving'. I say 'a part' because after death a man is not remembered as one unit. We often stay attached to his memories, the moments, the smile in his eyes - all those lingering thoughts that stay alive in our minds as fresh as ever.

After all it is not the footprints that matter, it is the imprints on our minds that stay on forever. And sometimes they cannot be blown away by the sands of time, they just stay there...

The Yardsticks of Life - Success and Failure

Life is not a thing that can be measured or weighed. But we often try to evaluate it in terms of success and failure. It is the basic human nature that we try to estimate our profit and loss in each and everything we do. We often try to divide life into two watertight compartments of success and failure. But that is not to be. Life is not presented to us in definite shades of black and white, rather we have varying shades of grey.

Although we can separately define success and failure, yet we cannot draw a line between the two. They are often overlapping or at times one may replace the other. Sometimes we lose even if we have won. At other times, even being a loser we might turn to be a winner in the end.

On some occasions it happens that when we win, there's a sense of guilt lurking in some corner of our heart, which keeps our success incomplete - we means we fail inspite of the success. Sometimes we fail to keep our relationships intact - at that particular moment we succeeded as a businessman but failed badly in being a human being. We fail to justify our existence as a man at the cost of feelings of others.

Basically success and failure co-exist. The victory of one person is to be attributed to the defeat of the person in opposition. If we study these two terms from the point of view of the sportspersons we can say that - no matter how successful a person might be in any sport, if he doesn't retire at the right time, when he is at the peak, very soon the journey downhill begins - this might turn his success into a failure (failure in terms of his decreasing popularity, people might remember him for his failures in the last matches). This is only another aspect of success and failure.

In general, we often hear people remark about a wealthy person, "He is a very successful man". Can we define success in monetary terms? Definitely not. Just before Alexander, the Great breathed his last, he had asked that his hands be kept out of his grave so that people might realise that he too went away empty-handed from this world.

The sooner we absorb this message in our lives the better it is. Otherwise we too will have to lament like Hamlet: "Had I but time, O! I could tell you, but let it be". The time once past cannot be recalled and reshaped, so the time to act is here and now.

Omar Khayyam writes:

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it"

'Vibrations' - the blog

Recently I discovered a blog entitled ‘Vibrations’. The blog is about the general outlook towards life, the little ramblings about life. The word vibrations set my mind thinking. Normally we can observe the various hues of life (as life is not presented to us in only black and white), but we fail to feel the vibrations of life. The quotes posted on the blog, especially those coined by the author himself are, indeed, very meaningful. The collage created by the blog author, Harneet Singh in the post : Dear God is very nice.
Enjoy travelling through this blog and feel the vibrations!

Woof Contest Top 5 - dated Nov. 7

Poetry
Penelope Anne Bartotto - “Never” - 100 words on being true to yourself.
Robert Bourne - “Shadowed Soul” - A poem of how I grew after years of hiding what was inside.
Dragon Blogger - “The Taste Of A Hamburger” - A poem based on a twitter contest where I write a poem based on random words. This one turned out to be a poem about a hamburger.
About Writing
Writing Nag - “7 Ways to Keep the Passion for the Writing Life” - Like any relationship your writing life needs to be nurtured. Find new ways to fall in love with writing again.
Non-Fiction, Philiosophical, Opinion
PieceMike Fried - “Proud To Be An American” - The Writer’s thoughts on the Presidential Election.

R. L. Stevenson's Poetry - A Tribute on his Birthday

R. L. Stevenson, the famous Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, was born on November 13 in the year 1850. Although wrote many short stories, poems, travalogues, novels, he is especially known for his novels: ‘Treasure Island’ (1883) and ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’(1886). Among other famous novels are ‘Kidnapped’ (1886) and Master Of Ballantrae (1889).
The aim of this post is to highlight the poetic masterpieces that have been created by Stevenson. We have all read much about his novels especially, the most about ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. (I had written a post earlier about it: ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’
I would like to share one of his poems here for my readers:
As from the house your mother seesYou playing round the garden trees,So you may see, if you will lookThrough the windows of this book,Another child, far, far away,And in another garden, play.But do not think you can at all,By knocking on the window, callThat child to hear you. He intentIs all on his play-business bent.He does not hear, he will not look,Nor yet be lured out of this book.For, long ago, the truth to say,He has grown up and gone away,And it is but a child of airThat lingers in the garden there.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Among his more famous poems is ‘Requeim’ that was published in his collection of poems called ‘Underwoods’

UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

R. L. Stevenson died on December 3, 1894, which left his last writing ‘Weir of Hermiston’ unfinished. It was later on published in 1896.

This is what we can in the end (in Stevenson’s own words):

Leave not, my soul, the unfoughten field, nor leave
Thy debts dishonoured, nor thy place desert
Without due service rendered. For thy life,
Up, spirit, and defend that fort of clay,
Thy body, now beleaguered; whether soon
Or late she fall; whether to-day thy friends
Bewail thee dead, or, after years, a man
Grown old in honour and the friend of peace.
Contend, my soul, for moments and for hours;
Each is with service pregnant; each reclaimed
Is as a kingdom conquered, where to reign.

Albert Camus (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960)

Albert Camus was born today (that is, November 7) in 1913. He was an Algerian-born, French author, philosopher and a jouralist. He won the Nobel Prize in 1957. He is remember for his especially remarkable 'The Stranger' (often titled as 'The Outsider'); among his other novels are - 'The Plague', 'The Fall'. He also wrote plays, short stories and essays.

Today as a tribute to this author on his birthday, I have created a poster with his picture, which I would like to share with my readers.