Ralph Waldo Emerson | dual personalities

May 24, 2024

“Ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody”*

by chuckofish

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan! He turns 83 today. We love you and God loves you.

It is time to plan a visit to the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK…however, I guess I’ll wait until the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, which is still closed for construction, reopens. Then it will be Tulsa Time!

In case you need reminding, Sunday is John Wayne’s birthday. He would be 117. If you are in Fort Worth, be sure to sign up for…

I will be home streaming my own John Wayne film festival.

Nobody slams a door like John Wayne.

How will you be celebrating?

P.S. Saturday is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I disagree with him about quite a few things, but I agree with this:

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

–RWE, Collected Poems

Now there’s three aces!

*Bob Dylan

But I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
Not today, not tonight, not tomorrow, no never, no way!

3 Comments

November 15, 2023

Right on schedule

by chuckofish

The Christmas cactus is budding!

Well, as Emerson said, “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

This is sage advice indeed. I am an old lady so I have slowed down considerably and I do not think that is a bad thing.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

So elevate your life!

4 Comments

May 25, 2021

“Baby sister, I was born game and I intend to go out that way.”

by chuckofish

Tomorrow is the birthday of John Wayne (1907-1979), so I thought another Pop Quiz was in order. Can you name the movie from which each J.W. quotation below comes? List your answers in the Comments section and I’ll post the answers later today.

Well, I used to be a good cowhand. But, things happen.

You’re not quite “Army” yet, miss… or you’d know never to apologize… it’s a sign of weakness.

Pilgrim, hold it. I said you, Valance; *you* pick it up.

SADDLE UP.

Get a shovel and my Bible. I’ll read over him.

The Apaches, sir, are neither to the north nor the east. Nor are they in their encampment. But if you’da been watching the dust swirls to the south, like most of us, you’d see that they’re right there! [points to the Apaches coming over the rise]

–Always liked that poem too. Makes me wanna…
–Ride, boldly ride? Well, it don’t work out that way.

Listen Brick, for years I’ve been taking your fatherly advice, and it’s never been any good. So from now on, I’m strictly a one man band!

Injun will chase a thing till he thinks he’s chased it enough. Then he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there’s such a thing as a critter that’ll just keep comin’ on. So we’ll find ’em in the end, I promise you. We’ll find ’em. Just as sure as the turnin’ of the earth.

–You’re a rich man, Burdette… big ranch, pay a lot of people to do what you want ’em to do. And you got a brother. He’s no good but he’s your brother. He committed twenty murders you’d try and see he didn’t hang for ’em.
–I don’t like that kinda talk. Now you’re practically accusing me…
–Let’s get this straight. You don’t like? I don’t like a lot of things. I don’t like your men sittin’ on the road bottling up this town. I don’t like your men watching us, trying to catch us with our backs turned. And I don’t like it when a friend of mine offers to help and twenty minutes later he’s dead! And i don’t like you, Burdette, because you set it up.

If you say “three,” mister, you’ll never hear the man count “ten.”

Well, Perlie, you old hayshaker… looks like you got me…

I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

P.S. In other news, yesterday was the 80th birthday of one of my other heroes, Bob Dylan.

God loves you and I love you, Bob. Happy birthday! Did you know that there is an Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa? Neither did I. Anyway, I feel a good long BD sing-a-long coming on. I contain multitudes.

Today, by the way, is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) and I will toast him tonight. Have a great day and “write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year…”

9 Comments

January 3, 2020

“High apple pie, in the sky hopes”*

by chuckofish

Last year on New Years Day I had no idea what was coming. We never do. But I posted this meme and I still believe it.

Screen Shot 2020-01-02 at 11.52.54 AM.png

I am making no resolutions this year. I am not going to read through the Bible or give up wine. But I will endeavor to continue to trust God and to love Him.

High hopes indeed.

As for my weekend, I plan to put my house in order after taking down the Christmas decorations. This is always a big job, but I already got the big tree down on New Years Day. It seems like I just got everything up!

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

*Sammy Cahn

3 Comments

September 11, 2019

Trust thyself.

by chuckofish

Daughter #1 here. It’s my birthday today! I’m old. And I’m going to let someone else devote a blog post to me/my birthday.

This weekend, I drove up to Columbia to hit some estate sales–and I hit the jackpot. An old professor’s house where the books were 50¢ and plentiful. I had to restrain myself because, as it is, I have eight boxes of books and dvds that have no home. I still walked away with a stack.

I figure, I need to get these before they all get rewritten.

I also got this Wedgewood Elizabeth II Coronation commemorative ashtray which I couldn’t resist because it just cracked me up. I just love that it’s an ashtray, so passé.

After perusing my purchases on Sunday evening, with Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on in the background, I was inspired to read Emerson’s Self-Reliance. It’ll cure what ails ya.

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adoptive talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.”

“It is easy to live in the world after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.”

I could really just copy and paste the whole thing here. It was just what I needed for Sunday night. And for this birthday week when, as usual, I have no plans and, not only do I have a busy and stressful day at work, I’m sure they won’t remember it is my birthday. That’s okay–I’ve got plans for the weekend and I can make my own joy.

I do think focusing on joy in the small things is something we can all work on. Life is hard, but it’s a gift, and even though it might not always feel like it, we are extremely lucky to be where we are. And that’s where I am as I head into a new year!

4 Comments

April 26, 2019

“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing/ On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”*

by chuckofish

It has been a busy week, the highlight of which was my visit to the wee babes’ preschool one morning for Grandparents’ Day. I went to chapel with them and to an activity (coloring) and a snack. I had to leave early to get to work, but they were in the good hands of their other grandparents. At two, life is just one activity after another and then you take a nap. Sounds pretty good, right?

After quite a few busy weekends in a row, I am going to take it real easy this weekend. I have no plans besides babysitting the wee babes on Saturday night. I am hoping the OM and I are capable of handling/wrangling them for two hours. We’ll see.

Since tomorrow marks the 137th anniversary of the death of the brilliant, but ultimately misguided, Sage of Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson, I will be toasting him.

Screen Shot 2019-04-25 at 1.09.28 PM.png

When Emerson died of pneumonia in 1882, he was buried on “Author’s Ridge” in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery —a cemetery that was designed with Emerson’s Transcendentalist, nature-loving aesthetics in mind. In 1855, as a member of the Concord Cemetery Committee, Emerson gave the dedication at the opening of the cemetery, calling it a “garden of the living” that would be a peaceful place for both visitors and permanent residents. “Author’s Ridge” became a burial ground for many of those famous American authors who called Concord home—Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Emerson. Good company for sure.

Screen Shot 2019-04-25 at 11.17.05 AM.png

I should also note that tomorrow Christina Rossetti is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Anglican Church.

Somewhere or Other

Somewhere or other there must surely be

The face not seen, the voice not heard,

The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!

Made answer to my word.

Somewhere or other, may be near or far;

Past land and sea, clean out of sight;

Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star

That tracks her night by night.

Somewhere or other, may be far or near;

With just a wall, a hedge, between;

With just the last leaves of the dying year

Fallen on a turf grown green.

Join me in toasting her as well! And have a good weekend!

*from “Amor Mundi” by Christina Rossetti

4 Comments

April 5, 2019

“Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness”*

by chuckofish

Another busy week (almost) in the books. Phew.

And I have exciting plans for the weekend! Today daughter #2 is flying home for a long weekend! Huzzah! We will celebrate her birthday and also cheer on daughter #1 and the boy as they race in the Go! St. Louis half-marathon on Sunday.

I will also note that daughter #1, who always takes a Xanax before getting on a plane, and had always sworn she would never ever fly on a small craft, flew in a little plane (sans Xanax) with her boss to a work event in Springfield the other day.

Yay! She did it! (I guess this is jet-setting, mid-MO style.)

Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again. It is the groom who knows the jumping horse well who can safely ride him.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage”

But don’t forget the bottom line: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13, for Pete’s sake)

Have a good weekend! And I couldn’t resist this…

What can happen to an Old-Fashioned?

Isaiah 41:10

7 Comments

November 16, 2017

Society never advances

by chuckofish

“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. …The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

What would old Emerson think of the age of computers and artificial intelligence…with self-driving cars and drones that bomb people and places on the other side of the world…

Screen Shot 2017-11-15 at 1.57.32 PM.png

Discuss among yourselves.

4 Comments

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

This made me LOL.

Also it got me thinking about support and encouragement, which are all very well and good, but lest we forget, here’s a word from Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance:

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

And a poem by Mary Oliver to get you moving:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Have a good weekend. October will be here tomorrow! The last quarter of the year is upon us. Let us make good use of it.

4 Comments

May 25, 2016

“Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best.”*

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the birthday of the oft-quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803–April 27, 1882).

It would be a good day to take down one of his books, blow off the dust and read it. It would also be a good day to take a walk–an activity he was fond of.

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

I will also remind you that tomorrow (May 26) is the birthday of John Wayne, so you might want to charge up your DVR in anticipation of said day. TCM is, of course, running his movies all day, although it is not a very inspired line-up if you ask me.

I will no doubt dig into my cache of John Wayne favorites and choose something else.

Speaking of JW, last week CBS ran a couple of classic (colorized) episodes of “I Love Lucy” from season 5 of the series–I’m not sure why. Originally broadcast in October of 1955, they centered on Lucy and Ethel trying to steal John Wayne’s footprints from in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the hilarity that ensues. I was never a huge fan of this show and its slapstick comedy, but I admit I laughed out loud watching these two episodes.

Of course, John Wayne was the guest star and at one point Lucy says to him, “Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best,”* and I couldn’t agree more.

The same goes for old Ralph Waldo Emerson. Have a great day and “write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year…”

3 Comments

Tag: Ralph Waldo Emerson

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish

by chuckofish