I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:
I know I’m one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
I know my sense is mock’d in ev’rything;
And, to conclude, I know myself a Man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.
Sir John Davies, 1569-1626
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.………
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy, Inferno
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.William Shakespeare 1564-1616, Sonnet 64
In the 1966 film adaption of Robert Bolt’s play, “A Man for All Seasons” the family witness an exchange between Sir Thomas, played by Paul Scolfield, and Richard Rich, the man who will eventually bring about Sir Thomas’s downfall, after which the following exchanges take place:
Lady Alice: – Arrest him!
Sir Thomas: – For what?
Lady Alice: – He’s dangerous!
Daughter: – Libel. He’s a spy!
Son-in-law: – That man’s bad!
Sir Thomas: – There’s no law against that.
Lady Alice: – God’s law!
Sir Thomas: – Then God can arrest him.
Lady Alice: – While you talk, he’s gone!
Sir Thomas: – Go he should, if he were the Devil, until he broke the law.
Son-in-law: – Now you give the Devil benefit of law!
Sir Thomas: – Yes, what would you do? Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil?
Son-in-law: – Yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
Sir Thomas: – And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
-This country is planted with laws from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s, and if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then?
-Yes. I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. Loung Ung.
“In memory of the two million people who perished under the Khmer Rouge regime.”
“Then Ma hears the slush of mud as a soldier moves his position. Her heart pounds as if it will rip through her chest. One soldier slings his rifle across his back and walks toward the group. Ma feels the ground beneath her become warm and wet. Glancing to her side, she sees that the man next to her has wet his pants. A soldier approachs the group. He walks straight toward her. Ma’s eyes widen with hope. Her heart palpitates with fear. The soldier reaches down and grabs Geak’s shoulders. The two of them scream a loud shrill scream that echoes through the air. But the soldiers do not stop and pull Geak out of her grasp as they cling to one another, yelling to each other not to let go. The soldier tears them apart until only the tips of their fingers hold them together, then that chain too is broken. All the villagers cry and beg and start to get up off their knees. Suddenly the rattling sounds of the rifles go off and the bullets pierce through their bodies, silencing their screams.
Geak runs over to Ma’s slumped-over body with her face in the mud. Geak is only six years old, too young to understand what has just happened…..Holding on to Ma’s head, Geak screams and screams, not stopping to take in any air. One soldier’s face darkens and he raises his rifle. Seconds later, Geak too is silenced.
“Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgements sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire”
Isabel Briggs Myers
Isabel Briggs Myers (1897-1980) was an American psychological theorist. She was co-creator, with her mother, of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The test is based on the Jung-Myers-Briggs typological approach to personality and a free online test can be found here
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! – then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.John Keats 1795-1821
For the record in 2005 I made over 100 visits to my gym in Bangkok. In 2006 that number was down to 10.
My apathetic torpor has finally given way and a few days ago I joined Fitness First.
Armed with “The Book of Muscle” by Ian King, given to me a year ago by my wonderful Korean friend M, and following his guide to healthy eating and structured workout programs, I began week 1, stage 1 of the beginners workout program.
On my first visit last Sunday I felt like I was Mr Been. But 90 minutes later I left feeling, amazingly enough, invigorated. The next morning the muscles all over my body were sore but still I felt good.
3 visits a week are prescribed. I have missed one session already, and lame excuses abound. Tomorrow is another day and another attempt to get back into the routine of exercise.
With the hope that I can look back on this in 6 months, here for the record are my stats and starting workout program:
Age:43 Height 170cm Weight: 57.8 kg No abs, pecs or biceps to be seen.
Weeks 1- 3, 3 times a week. Total Body Workout. 1 set 15-20 reps
I used two 7lbs dumbbells throughout except for 3 -15lbs 12 reps only; 8 – 10lbs 20 reps.
From such pathetic beginnings I hope to blossom.
Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world….
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)
