| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: acquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out
playfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian (Probably a
play of words on (Greek), 'bald-headed.') man, halt! So I did as I was
bid; and then he said, I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now,
that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which were
delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon's supper.
Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them; his
narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I wish that
you would give me an account of them. Who, if not you, should be the
reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me, he said, were you
present at this meeting?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: thine own care, saying, I had none more faithful than myself:
keep this man for me such as Nature hath made him--modest,
faithful, high-minded, a stranger to fear, to passion, to
perturbation. . . .
Such will I show myself to you all.--"What, exempt from
sickness also: from age, from death?"--Nay, but accepting
sickness, accepting death as becomes a God!
LXII
No labour, according to Diogenes, is good but that which
aims at producing courage and strength of soul rather than of
body.
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: It is possible, perhaps, that this young man would have
derided, in an axle-wide alley, the approach of a flying ferry
boat. Yet he achieved a respect for a fire engine. As one charged
toward his truck, he would drive fearfully upon a sidewalk,
threatening untold people with annihilation. When an engine would
strike a mass of blocked trucks, splitting it into fragments, as a
blow annihilates a cake of ice, Jimmie's team could usually be
observed high and safe, with whole wheels, on the sidewalk.
The fearful coming of the engine could break up the most intricate
muddle of heavy vehicles at which the police had been swearing for
the half of an hour.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
