All Kinds of Prison

“All kinds of prison, and I’m stuck in the worst: the prison of doubt.” - Twice in a lifetime. TV episode

Twice in a Lifetime is a hard show to explain. It is a feel-good show that gives people a second chance at their life. A character dies at the start of every episode and is then given the chance to go back and make some changes in their life. The catch is that they only have three days to make the change and that they must do it as a third and outside party. The soul is sent back to earth as a “free agent with the blessing of God almighty.” Thus starts the show every week.

I wrote the quotation down from one episode a long time ago because it spoke to me. I thought that it was a good metaphor because doubt can be debilitating. Another quote that relates to this topic is…

“If you think you can or you think you can’t you’re right.” - Henry Ford.

Both of these quotes illustrate the power of belief. If you truly believe that you can’t do something and if you let doubt stand in your way, you will be stuck. You won’t be able to accomplish anything. Of course, the reverse is also true. If you believe that you can do something and work hard to make it happen, it will happen.

Belief is a really strong power. It can keeps us trapped or give us complete freedom.

We Have to be Heroes

“Every single one of us has to be a hero at sometime in our lives.” - Armstrong, Karen. A Short History of Myth. Alfred A Knopf, 2005 pg 37.

Notice how this quote doesn’t say, “get to” it says “has to.” This basically means that we are all heroes.

At one point in our lives we will be called upon to do something heroic. This doesn’t mean that we have to be superheroes. We don’t need to show superhuman strength. Everyday interaction can be heroic. Showing compassion for someone, helping out, volunteering; all of these things can mean a lot to someone.

Happy Monday Everyone!

Literature Helps Us

“. . . literature is healthful and maybe necessary as part of our overall response to the demands of life.” - Gold, Joseph. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg xv

I think literature is necessary. Stories are important and one of the best ways to experience them is through literature. I think the characters and events in novels can teach us a lot about our lives and things that happen to us. We can learn from stories in ways that we can’t really learn in any other way.

Knowing what has happened to one character in a book might help me make a good decision if I am ever in a similar situation. As such, maybe it is not a stretch to say that literature can help us in a healthy and productive way.

This is a book that I mined for quotations. It ties into my theories on story. If you like some of the quotations here you might be interested in my series on Story I will be running on my main blog, Silent Cacophony starting next week.

Secret Desires

“I remembered something Antonella from Nintendo once told me about her job at a day-care center, about storytelling to kids – about how stories the children liked best were the ones in which the characters fled their old planets amid great explosions, leaving everything behind them to start a new world.

And then I remembered this book-writing program my mom told me about from someone in her library. The big deal in book writing is to quickly establish at the very beginning what it is that the characters want

But I think that the books I really enjoy are the ones in which the characters realize, only in the end, what it was that they secretly wanted all along, but never even knew. And maybe this is what life is really like.”

- Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. HarperCollins Books: Toronto, 1995. pg 102

Like Walking on a Pretzel

“It’s time to invent the future cause there ain’t nobody else
you can make it happen right so make it happen for yourself
instead of stressing everything the next man got
and trying to blow up the next man’s spot
always acting like ya got a whole lot
when the fact is that you’re trying to be something ya not
yo, if you don’t cut it out ya gonna get forgot
cause the madness got to stop
see life is kinda stressful,
especially when you’re trying to be successful
so many twist and turns it’s like your walking on a pretzel
yet in still, I swear to build by any means.”
- Bushbabees “Gravity” from the album “Gravity”

The Search

“If you don’t look, you find.” - When Harry Met Sally. DVD commentary to the film

I am always amazed at the process of trying to find something. I have had times where I have ripped apart my entire house looking for it. I have frantically searched every single conceivable place for something and come up empty. So I give up the search and go back to my daily activities.

Then, as if by magic, hours later, I remember where I put the item. I wasn’t looking for it anymore but I found it. Other times, after giving up a search, I find it quiet by accident some time later.

My dad would always say, “It’s always the last place you look.” I never understood this saying. I always thought, “Of course it’s the last place you look because once you find it you stop looking.”

This quotation from the commentary of the film has a lot to say. I think it goes beyond the search for items. It might even deal with fate. I know that I have found things and gone places quite by accident, almost as if trying were counterproductive. I can’t explain it at all. That is why this quote deserves to be in this collection.

The Rent We Pay

“Service is the rent we pay for our room on earth.” - King George VI

What a great thought. Imagine what the world would be like if we were all to take this on as a pledge. Service means “contribution to the welfare of others.” If we all made regular contributions, the world would be a much nicer place.