And why is that the essence of it all for you?

-- Ann Monroe (monroe@chorus.net), June 05, 2000

Answers

Make not your thoughts your prisons-Shakespear's "Anthony & Cleopatra"

and:

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so- Shakespear's "Hamlet"

I think that thoughts/ideas are just as real as objects and events, and have the same amount of affect on others. I think people can use their mindsets to overcome just about anything. For example, one person may commit suicide over an event, while another person uses the same event as a means to grow stronger as a person. People have used their mindsets to survive persecution, holocausts, and imprisonment.

On a lighter note, here's another favorite:

Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon. -Abbie Hoffman

-- AJ (joijoijoi@hotmail.com), June 05, 2000.

At this time in my life, it seems to be a line from my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot. It's from "Four Quartets, Little Gidding:"

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

It makes looking back at my life so far all the more fruitful and surprising, and looking forward all the more exciting.

-- Mark (mbourne@sff.net), June 05, 2000.

not fair....who can sum it up with one slogan? anyway here's a couple:

...."One thing I know for sure, though, is that when you are hungry, it is an act of wisdom each time you turn down a spoonful if you know that the food is poisoned...".......Ann Lamott (for times of obsession)

"Things are not what they seem.....nor are they otherwise."

and last but not least....for when I can't let go...

"The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on. Nor all your piety or wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it..." Omar Khayam

-- tom (taclee@hotmail.com), June 06, 2000.

If you know what you're doing, it's not an adventure. Spend as much time as you can with the nice people; it barely begins to make up for all the time you have to spend with the jerks. It's okay to have low self-esteem if everything you do is wrong.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), June 08, 2000.

look for the good in everyone. love can never die, or it wasn't love. in order to live a good life, you've got to try your hardest to figure out what a good life is. surround yourself with wonderful people, if they stick around you'll realize it's because you are wonderful too.

-- diego (drafael@hotmail.com), June 08, 2000.

Well, I cant help but give my great grandmothers old farm slogans that always guide me:

If you send shit you get shit.

and

Them who dont come, dont go away.

But:

Wherever you go there you are. has a special place in my heart for its down on the farm Zen quality.

And for my obsessive, clingy and pushy friends I often use:

No, means no.

-- Lee (leet@megsinet.net), June 08, 2000.

"You shit what you eat" is a good all-purpose credo. It can relate to the company one keeps, the books a writer reads, or the quality of how time is spent.

-- Mark (mbourne@sff.net), June 09, 2000.

June is 'Fuckin' Bob month' If something is wrong, it's Bob's fault. Fuckin' Bob.

(:

-- jese nicodemus (oneeye@jps.net), June 10, 2000.

Here in Madison, deep in the cold meanness of winter, we usually say "many are stalled, but few are frozen". Somehow it makes this terrible cold easier to take.

-- Terrance Hanrahan (terrance3047@hotmail.com), June 15, 2000.

"If you want it done right, do it yourself"

...but i try to keep that one out of the bedroom!

-- libzie (libzie@yahoo.com), June 16, 2000.