Source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/3149942255_1325221807.jpg

One has just to be oneself.  That’s my basic message.  The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens simply disappear.  Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

We are meant to midwife dreams for one another… Success occurs in clusters.

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Take heart, truth and happiness will get you in the end.  You can’t lose in this game.  Have fun.

John and Lyn St. Clair Thomas

A human being is a part of the whole…. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of… consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Albert Einstein

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

It took me a while to pick the best idea for the post on March the 8^th, the International Women’s Day.  What do women cherish the most?  Careers?  Perhaps… But love is always the safe bet, so I decided to talk more about love and meaning of life because this is the most important thing for me.  And for the rest of the world?  That is for the rest of the world to decide.

From Katherine Woodward Thomas “Calling in “The One”

Are you frustrated by stymied relationships, missed connections, and the loneliness of the search for someone to spend the rest of your life with?  Are you ready, instead, to find “The One”?  In Calling in “The One”, Katherine Woodward Thomas shares her own personal experience to show women that in order to find the relationship that will last a lifetime, you have to be truly open and ready to create a loving, committed, romantic union.  Calling in “The One” shows you how.

Based on the Law of Attraction, which is the concept that we can only attract what we’re ready to receive, the provocative yet simple seven-week program in Calling in “The One” prepares you to bring forth the love you seek.  For each of the 49 days of Thomas’s thoughtful and life-affirming plan, there is a daily lesson, a corresponding practice, and instruction for putting that lesson into action in your life.  Meditation, visualization, and journaling exercises will gently lead you to recognize the obstacles on your path to love and provide ways to steer around them.  At the end of those 49 days, you will be in the ideal emotional state to go out into the world and find “The One”.

An inspirational approach that offers a radical new philosophy on relationships, Calling in “The One” is your guide to finding the love you seek.

From the Chapter 13 “Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall”

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/ny/3-11-fiction-mirror-1.jpg

An ordinary man behaves like a dog which, upon entering a hall of mirrors, barks at all the other dogs.  The sage, entering the hall of mirrors, sees only himself.”

Gurunathan

I no longer try to change outer things.  They are simply a reflection.  I change my inner perception and the outer reveals the beauty so long obscured by my own attitude.  I concentrate on my inner vision and find my outer view transformed.

Daily Word

Like attracts like.  Whatever the conscious mind thinks and believes, the subconscious identically creates.

Brian Adams

A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror.

Ken Keyes Jr.

Page 84

We often have more faith in the act of assertion than we do in the Law of Attraction – trusting more in trying to make things happen by taking actions than we do in drawing things toward us and allowing them to happen.  This doing-ness could be called the masculine aspect of the creative process; that part that goes out and gets what it wants.  It is the hunter in all of us, both male and female.  The masculine creative principle is largely how our Western culture works.  It is the principle that we are most familiar with and the one that we trust in the most.

The feminine aspect of the creative principle, however, draws toward itself that which it is actively creating from within.  We often mistake this stillness as passive and static.  Women, who are usually cast in this inactive role, are often frustrated by the “sit and wait by the phone” thing.  However, this is a misunderstanding of the power of the feminine creative process, which conceives by cultivating a strong inner vision and then working internally to draw that vision in.  Feminine creative energy is like a barber role.  It alternates between the red and the white with no beginning and no end.  The internal vision is the magnet for the external condition and they dance fluidly and in harmony with one another constantly.

[…]

Many of us feel so desperate and driven to find love.  But the feeling of desperation is really a panicked response to inner belief that you will not get what you want.  This belief then causes an anxious ambition to have this not be so, and we start trying to push, manipulate, and cajole the events of our lives in reaction.  But there’s absolutely nothing you can do externally to prove that your own internal belief is wrong.  Because it’s neither right nor wrong.  It’s simply your belief.  As such, it has the power to magnetize that which does – and that which does not come into your life.

[…]

What can’t come through you, can’t come to you.  If you want to attract in the people, situations, and circumstances that support the manifestation of love in your life, then you must feel love, believe that it is possible for you, and claim it as your own.  Because we draw toward us that which is most compelling within us, believing with all your heart that you can and will have love is the single most important thing that you can do on this quest for fulfillment.

From Robert Greene “The 48 Laws of Power”.

Law 48 – Assume Formlessness

Page 419

Judgment

By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack.  Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move.  Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed.  The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order.  Everything changes.

Source: http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/vt-2004//mt-2003/mt-mercury-map6-normal.jpg

In martial arts, it is important that strategy be unfathomable, that form be concealed, and that movements be unexpected, so that preparedness against them be impossible.  What enables a good general to win without fail is always having unfathomable wisdom and a modus operandi that leaves no tracks.  Only the formless cannot be affected.  Sages hide in unfathomability, so their feelings cannot be observed; they operate in formlessness, so their lines cannot be crossed.

The Book of the Huainan Masters, China, Second Century B.C.

Character Armor

To carry out the instinctual inhibition demanded by the modern world and to be able to cope with the energy stasis which results from this inhibition, the ego has to undergo a change.  The ego, i.e., that part of the person that is exposed to danger, becomes rigid, as we say, when it is continually subjected to the same or similar conflicts between need and a fear-inducing outer world.  It acquires in this process a chronic, automatically functioning mode of reaction, i.e., its “character”.  It is as if the affective personality armored itself, as the hard shell it develops were intended to deflect and weaken the blows of the outer world as well as the clamoring of the inner needs.  This armoring makes the person less sensitive to unpleasure, but also restricts his libidinal and aggressive motility and thus reduces his capacity for achievement and pleasure.  We say the ego has become less flexible and more rigid, and that the ability to regulate the energy economy depends on the extent of the armoring.

Wilhelm Reich, 1897 – 1957

Observance of the law

When you want to fight us, we don’t let you and you can’t find us.  But when we want t fight you, we make sure that you can’t get away and we hit you squarely…and wipe you out… The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.

Mao Tse-Tung, 1893 – 1976

Keys to Power

The human animal is distinguished by its constant creation of forms.  Rarely expressing its emotions directly, it gives them form through language, or through socially acceptable rituals.  We cannot communicate our emotions without a form.

The forms that we create, however, change constantly – in fashion, in style, in all those human phenomena representing the mood of the moment.  We are constantly altering the forms we have inherited from previous generations, and these changes are signs of life and vitality.  Indeed, the things that don’t change, the forms that rigidify, come to look to us like death, and we destroy them.  The young show this most clearly: Uncomfortable with the forms that society imposes upon them, having no set identity, they play with their own characters, trying on a variety of masks and poses to express themselves.  This is the vitality that drives the motor of form, creating constant changes in style.

The powerful are often people who in their youth have shown immense creativity in expressing something new through a new form.  Society grants them power because it hungers for and rewards this sort of newness.  The problem comes later, when they often grow conservative and possessive.  They no longer dream of creating new forms; their habits congeal, and their rigidity makes them easy targets.  Everyone knows their next move.  Instead of demanding respect they elicit boredom: Get off the stage! We say, let someone else, someone younger, entertain us.  When locked in the past, the powerful look comical – they are overripe fruit, waiting to fall from the tree.

Power can only thrive if it is flexible in its forms.  To be formless is not to be amorphous; everything has a form – it is impossible to avoid.  The formlessness of power is more like that of water, or mercury, taking the form of whatever is around it.  Changing constantly, it is never predictable.  The powerful are constantly creating form, and their power comes from the rapidity with which they can change.  Their formlessness is in the eye of the enemy who cannot see what they are up to and so has nothing solid to attack.  This is the premier pose of power: ungraspable, as elusive and swift as the god Mercury, who could take any form he pleased and this ability to wreak havoc on Mount Olympus.

Human creations evolve toward abstraction, toward being more mental and less material.  This evolution is clear in art, which, in this century, made the great discovery of abstraction and conceptualism; it can also be seen in politics, which over time have become less overtly violent, more complicated, indirect and cerebral.  Warfare and strategy too have followed this pattern.  Strategy began in the manipulation of armies on land, positioning them in ordered formations; on land, strategy is relatively two dimensional, and controlled by topography.  But all the great powers have eventually taken to sea, for commerce and colonization.  And to protect their trading lanes they have had to learn how to fight at sea.  Maritime warfare requires tremendous creativity and abstract thinking, since the lines are constantly shifting.  Naval captains distinguish themselves by their ability to adapt to the literal fluidity of the terrain and to confuse the enemy with an abstract, hard-to-anticipate form.  They are operating in a third dimension: the mind.

Image:

Mercury.  The winged messenger, god of commerce, patron saint of thieves, gamblers, and all those who deceive through swiftness.  The day Mercury was born he invented the lyre; by that evening he had stolen the cattle of Apollo.  He would scour the world, assuming whatever form he desired.  Like the liquid metal named after him, he embodies the elusive, the ungraspable – the power of formlessness.

Authority:

Therefore the consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. Vitory in war is not repetitious, but adapts its form endlessly… A military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: The ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.

(Sun-tzu, fourth century B.C.)

From Robert Greene “The 48 Laws of Power”.

Preface, page xvii

The feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us – when we feel helpless we feel miserable.  No one wants less power; everyone wants more.  In the world today, however, it is dangerous to seem too power hungry, to be overt with your power moves.  We have to seem fair and decent.  So we need to be subtle – congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious.

This game of constant duplicity most resembles the power dynamic that existed in the scheming world of the old aristocratic court.

[…]

The successful courtier learned over time to make all of his moves indirect; if he stabbed an opponent in the back, it was with a velvet glove on his hand and the sweetest of smiles on his face.  Instead of using coercion or outright treachery, the perfect courtier got his way though seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves ahead.  Life in the court was a never-ending game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking.  It was civilized war.

Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier: Everything must appear civilized, decent, democratic, and fair.  But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish.  As the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.”  The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface a cauldron of dark emotions – greed, envy, lust, hatred – boiled and simmered.  Our world similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us, as they have forever.  The game is the same.  Outwardly, you must seem to respect the niceties, but inwardly, unless you are a fool, you learn quickly to be prudent, and to do as Napoleon advised: Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove.  If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts o indirection, learning to seduce, charm, deceive, and subtly outmaneuver your opponents, you will attain the heights of power.  You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done.  And if they do not realize what you have done, they will never resent nor resist you.

Succeed (ME < L succedere <sub -  up (to) + cedere go)

1. turn out well; prosper : His plans succeeded. Any able person who works well can succeed..
2. accomplish what is attempted or intended: The attack succeeded beyond all expectations.  After much discussion, Jill succeeded in convincing her father that she needed her own car.

Of course, in a philosophical sense of the word, it is much harder to define what success really is.  Or failure for that matter.

Source: http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r320/nizz6pics/success.jpg

Quotes on Success:

“Success is not access to excess.” Anonymous

 

 

“The two hardest things to handle in life are failure & success.” Anonymous

 

 

“Yielding is sometimes the best way of succeeding.” Anonymous

 

 

“You cannot sit on the road to success, for if you do, you will get run over.” Anonymous

 

 

“A successful man continues to look for work after he has found a job.” Anonymous

 

 

“Health, happiness and success depend upon the fighting spirit of each person. The big thing is not what happens to us in life – but what we do about what happens to us.” George Allen

 

 

“Act as though it is impossible to fail.” Anonymous

 

 

“Choice, not circumstances, determines your success.” Anonymous

 

 

“Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running.” Zig Ziglar

 

 

”If you care at all, you’ll get some results.  If you care enough, you’ll get incredible results.” Jim Rohn

 

 

“Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are. . . . It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It’s like the perfume of the flower — unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.” George Matthew Adams

 

 

“Success comes before work only in the dictionary.” Anonymous

 

 

“Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.”  Dr. Joyce Brothers

 

 

“Men are failures, not because they are stupid, but because they are not sufficiently impassioned.”  Struther Burt

 

 

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” Winston Churchill

Inspired by the conversation with my friend.

“Veni,Vidi,Vici” means:

“I came, I saw, I conquered”

-Julius Caesar-

The famous expression “Veni,Vidi,Vici” (”I came, I saw, I conquered”) applied to certain people with the motto “Cool-headed, hot-hearted professionals with clean hands” has been eloquently transformed by Victor Pelevin into

“f-cked, killed, buried, dug out and f-cked again”

and, trust me, it is an understatement.

Виктор Пелевин «Числа»

- …Не для себя стараюсь.  Ты хоть знаешь, сколько людей в цепочке,

Стёпа вспомнил, что недавно, совсем в другой вселенной, уже слышал эту фразу.

-         Знаю, – сказал он. – Вся страна.

-         Это раньше была вся страна.  А теперь всеь свободный мир, понял, нет?  И несвободный мир тоже.

-         Понял, понял.  Классная у тебя работа, Лебёдкин.  Пришёл, увидел, победил.

-         Это раньше было – пришёл, увидел, победил, – хохотнул Лебёдкин.  А теперь знаешь как?  Вы-бал, убил, закопал, раскопал и опять вы-бал.  Темп жизни совсем другой.

Discourse

When I talk about definitions, I think it is important.  For me, at least.

A discourse – a conversation, talk. (apart from other meanings).

Origin: Latin dis – in different directions + currere – run.

An example?  Oh, my goodness!  I often listen to the songs on the www.youtube.com.  And how many times I had encountered absolutely insane conversations!  Most of the time I just don’t even pay attention to what is there.  But once I was asked whether I am aware of the discussions under the clips.  Then I sort of started paying attention.

I picked a clip teaching beginners’ steps for Salsa.  And a discourse jewel on top.  Here it is – a priceless example of meanness and creativity.  And one of the participants had a good point, when he mentioned the importance of definitions.

************************************************************************

Participant 1:

Following your line of thinking, Spanish is actually a retarded deformation of Latin and Arabic.

Notwithstanding the fact that you are unaware of the definition of the words:

1) retarded

2) language

3) dialect

the fact remains that you are neither intelligent, nor insightful, nor useful as a human being. I hereby order you, in the name of the survival of the species, to cease existing immediately.

************************************************************************

I was just wondering what drives those conversations.  Some people would say anger.  But I am beginning to think that it is pure loneliness.  Maybe both.

Quotes on Discourse:

1. “All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome”

(Ben Jonson)

 

2. “Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”

(Thomas Carlyle)

 

3. “It’s our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It’s a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.”

(Deborah Tannen)

4. “The only privilege literature deserves – and this privilege it requires in order to exist – is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.”

(Salman Rushdie)

 

5. “Discourse may want an animated “No”

 

To brush the surface, and to make it flow;

 

But still remember, if you mean to please,

 

To press your point with modesty and ease.”

(William Cowper)

 

6. “The failures of the press have contributed immensely to the emergence of a talk-show nation, in which public discourse is reduced to ranting and raving and posturing.”

(Carl Bernstein)

A poem about Winter Landscape.

Surprisingly enough, I was thinking what I could write about Winter Landscape.  That was my homework for January.  Yes, that one from the calendar.

And that is what I found.

A Russian romance “In the Moonlight the snow is sparkling”.

Because it is Russian Romance, it is in the Russian language.  Obviously, but that is not the point.  I had to look up the word romance because I was not sure if I used it correctly.  Apparently, I was right and one of the meanings of “romance” is “a short, lyrical composition.”

But then I looked at the origin of the word and that where I lost my conscience. (A joke!)  The word “romance” stems from the word Roma = Rome.  If I take things literally and I do it quite often, just for fun, then a Russian Romance is a contradiction of terms.

So, all these meanings: a love story, a literary genre, the aura of excitement and more simply come back to Rome.  Literally, all roads lead to Rome.  Or rather all ROMANCES originate in Rome.  Or?  Maybe that is the reason why my Italian friend is so amorous all the time.

Coming back to “In the moonlight the snow is sparkling”.  This romance is neither about winter, nor about landscape, it is about Love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yFfX-UK9PI&feature=related

В лунном сиянье

слова и музыка Е. Юрьева

Полный текст песни

слова и музыка Е. Юрьева

В лунном сиянье снег серебрится,

Вдоль по дороге троечка мчится.

Динь-динь-динь, динь-динь-динь —

Колокольчик звенит,

Этот звон, этот звон

О любви говорит.

В лунном сиянье ранней весною

Помнятся встречи, друг мой, с тобою.

Динь-динь-динь, динь-динь-динь —

Колокольчик звенел,

Этот звон, этот звон

О любви сладко пел.

Помнятся гости шумной толпою,

Личико милой с белой фатою.

Динь-динь-динь, динь-динь-динь —

Звон бокалов шумит,

С молодою женой

Мой соперник стоит.

В лунном сиянье снег серебрится,

Вдоль по дороге троечка мчится.

Динь-динь-динь, динь-динь-динь —

Колокольчик звенит,

Этот звон, этот звон

О любви говорит.

My Next Calling

My next calling was discovered by my darling – “Mein Lieber A.”, Mr. “And your point being?”, “Mi Amore”, Mr. “I never promised you anything”, Mr. “I am Beautiful”, Mr. Denial (well, I am being creative with nicknames!)

I do have a soft spot for him, obviously.  He doesn’t reciprocate, but that is fine, it is to be expected.

He does not have such a good memory and my ability to pay attention and remember some of his words is the source of irritation for him.  Once he gave me permission to kick him out of his complacent condition, yet when I did, he did not like it all that much.  That is to be expected, too.

Quoting:

“If you wish to devote all your energy to keeping tabs on me on what I say then you may have found your next calling.”

I wish I had such sharp memory to remember everything he said, but I don’t.  But some things just stay, what can I do?

Certain sentences are repeated so many times, they become fixtures, motifs, cornerstones, whatever name you want to use.  “I never promised you anything” and “And your point being is?” are just a few of them.

Some sentences are just worth remembering.

“I never once refused not to help you.”

 

“I am beautiful.”

 

“I […] enter this forest at its darkest point; for it is at the darkest moment we see the light.”

How about that?

The best thing about him is not my infatuation, however sweet, intoxicating, euphoric and painful it might be, but the fact that he inspires me in a sense.  Is it he I like or my own reflection in him; for we can only see ourselves reflected in others?

Maybe I am not Light enough (my name literally means “Light”) for him to see, or maybe he is not in that dark forest anymore.  Maybe he never was there.  Of course, I am joking.  Most people (he is not an exception) take things way too seriously.

So my next calling is not to remember him and his every word, but to discover that Light within me that will bring me happiness and harmony.  Whether I can light anybody else’s life or not, we will see.  Discovering that Light would be my Success.  Yes, that one that is usually defined (limited!) by perseverance.

Talking about names!

“There’s a scientific hypothesis that every person’s name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, because society only needs a limited number of human types. Just a few models of worker and warrior ants, if I could put it like that. And everybody’s psyche is preprogrammed at a basic level by the associative semantic fields that their first name and surname activate.”
— Victor Pelevin (The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

If that is right, I must be Light.  The question is what Light is and what to do with it.

Quotes on the subject.

1. Love is not consolation.  It is light.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

 

2. Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we’ll need no other light.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

3. Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space.  It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe.  It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.  ~Michael Strassfeld

 

4. We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.  ~Mary Dunbar

 

5. Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.  ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

 

6. Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft.  ~Sven Nykvist

 

7. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come.  At the darkest moment comes the light.  ~Joseph Campbell

 

8. Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.  ~Kahlil Gibran

 

9. Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way.  But if you hold it up against the light of God’s goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright.  And then you ask yourself in amazement:  Is this really my own life I see before me?  ~Albert Schweitzer

 

10. An age is called “dark,” not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it.  ~James Michener

Coming back to

“I never once refused not to help you.”  He did help me.  By making me amorous, by irritating me, by making me think, by inspiring me.

“Why do you want to be infatuated with me?”  It was not my choice, mi amore, but it felt good, why is it so difficult to understand?  But he does not have to understand; searching for the Light and Meanings is my journey.

So there I go, full of Love in my heart and Hope and Light………………………………..

“And Your Point being?” versus “Do you have a sense of humour?”

“Mein Lieber A.” (a friend of mine) and I had a few conversations and most of them ended up by him asking the question “And your point being?” and me asking “Do you have a sense of humour?”

I know he does.  But sometimes it becomes a bit frustrating when my jokes totally miss the target.  Wait, do jokes have targets?  Like cannons?  They do and they don’t.

I looked up the word “humour”.  Apparently I did not know all of its meanings.

“A state of mind; mood; disposition” – does not seem to be far out.

“A fancy; whim”

“Any of various body fluids formerly supposed to determine a person’s health and disposition.  They were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile).”

Surprise, surprise!

If you have to think of it, it might seem funny – that our sense of humour is derived from bodily fluids.  The word “humour” itself means in its origin fluid.

Maybe because humour is fluid and elusive.  I doubt it, though.

Well, anyways, the most common meaning of “Sense of Humour” now is “the ability to see or show the funny or amusing side of things.”

Some quotes on the subject.

Humor is the harmony of the heart. (Douglas William Jerrold)

 

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight. (Leo Rosten)

 

What an ornament and safeguard is humor!

Far better than wit for a poet and writer.

It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities.  (Sir Walter Scott)

What is humour for me?  Everything.  Salvation. Absolution.  State of mind (absolutely!).  My style of communication.  And without a sense of humour there is no mutual understanding.  Humour is my life.  My anchor. Or my wings? Oh, well, maybe a painkiller once in a while.  Whatever it is, of whatever quality (right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, light, dark), it is mine and mine only, it can never be taken from me.  Well, unless I lose my mind.

And what is my mind?