Beautiful Cynicism III

Happiness is only possible as an ongoing project. The pursuit of the thing, it turns out, is the thing itself.

Amanda Marcotte

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. ~George Bernard Shaw

And yet, recollections there are: and many, at that. And yes, looking towards and preparing for the future are important – but so is remembering the past, which is what shapes us, from one little HPB to Miss Orange…

So glad you’re you. And so glad you’re a part of me.

Photo: sleepishly @ Flickr

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.

Henry Ward Beecher

Photo: AquaSixio @ Deviant Art

Yes, that about sums up my New Year’s Eve and the birth of 2010. Drinking, singing, munching, laughing, and generally rocking out: it’s all good. Happy New Year!

New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.

Hamilton Wright Mabie

Photo: MotyPest @ Deviantart

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags!
And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?

Dr. Seuss

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Charles Dickens

Presents have been opened, food has been eaten, laughter has been shared: ghosts of yet another Christmas past. Now, on to Boxing Day sales? I think not: this year, nothing but rest is on my agenda. Which is not to say that I’m complaining.

Noël, c’est la veille, c’est l’attente. (Georges Dor)

La veille de Noël: on y est arrivé. Un matin tranquille, perturbé uniquement par le développement d’un petit rhume chez moi. La neige tombe doucement sur la ville. Les rues sont pleines de gens qui quittent le travail tôt et qui courent partout en essayant de trouver des cadeaux dernière minute. Edie dort dans sa petite maison, les lumières sur l’arbre de Noël brillent, les gens dans l’appartement voisin rient… C’est le moment des fêtes.

Whilst visions of sugar-plums dance in our heads…

What is important is that each of us begins to trust in our own beauty and our capacity to do beautiful things.

-Jean Vanier

“Take a look at the five-and-ten glistening once again/With candy canes and silver lanes aglow…”

Photo: Swiv @ Flickr