“He who as the why to live can bear with almost any how.” – Frederich Nietzsche
That sounds simple enough, just find out why to live. However, what struck me as I uploaded this just now is that those people who have to struggle desperately with ‘how’ to live (poverty, war, concentration camps, illness) are the ones that usually find out the ‘why’. Sort of a chicken or the egg type thing I suppose.
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
She makes no friends who never made a foe.” – Tennyson
Very simple, very true.
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Knowledge without sense is double folly.” – Baltasar Gracian
What is the danger of knowledge without sense, anyway? Why is it double folly as opposed to just folly x 1?
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Without Art, The Crudeness of Reality Would Make The World Unbearable” – George Bernard Shaw
If you think about the most basic definition of art then everywhere around you the world has been designed to look, feel, smell, and taste good. Why is that? Why paint our walls? Why stain concrete? Why not just have dirt in the back yard?
You could say that art is the matrix (see movie for matrix idea) that allows us to think we live in a beautiful world. The difference is that art really does transform our world, it isn’t an illusion as it was in the Matrix. How have you transformed your world through art this week, or year, or day or?
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.” – Horace Mann
So, the key is to find that thread. Where does one find that?
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Our faults are more pardonable than our efforts to hide them.” – La Rochefoucauld
Hiding things makes so much sense, is so compellingly important to the addict, the secret bearer, the flawed one. But in the end the secret will find its way out. It may not show itself directly, but something wrong in the world will. Maybe it will be anger and frustration with family or friends that isn’t deserved and doesn’t make sense. Maybe it will be escapist behavior that threatens yourself and those around you, or it might be an out and out full exposure of the secret when you least expect it. But however the secret comes out, directly or not, holding onto it will affect your life for the worse, not the better in the long run.
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.” – Alexander Pope
My daughter said in response to this: “hmmm, I don’t know about this one. I am wary of people who say that it’s better to get enjoyment out of ‘good’ or ‘intellectual’ things than regular fun things.” And I have to agree with her. but is there some truth in this quote nonetheless?
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Cut off from the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman.” – Josef Pieper
I don’t think I agree with this anymore. At least I don’t understand how divinity
ennobles leisure and work exactly. Anyone care to give me their explanation, or do you
also disagree with it?
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what she thinks into it.” – Ernest Holmes
I can’t remember know why I drew a B looking in the mirror, maybe I drew an A doing
something the day before, heck if I know, but I do know that I completely believe this
statement, that who you are and what you think makes a big difference in how you think
life is. Life isn’t just one thing, it is many things all at once and we usually see
those things we want to see or are practiced in seeing.
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.” – Margaret Bonanno
I think this is mostly due to the fact there is never any ‘happy’ accept in the moment you are in. You can anticipate future happiness, but you are doing so in the here and now. You can imagine a life of happiness, but you are doing so at the present moment. Without today, without being happy today, you can’t have a happy forever.
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
