October Observation #13 & #14
/Literal Integration
My observations are born from conversations with people I interact with at work, at home, at the coffee shop, on a run, in transit —Life. Most of them could be fleshed out into whole ass essays but ain't nobody got time for that.
Keep up.
Michelle and I visited with our great couple friends and soon to be neighbors in Harrisburg. The two observations below materialized from breaking bread, and drinking drank with them.
Nothing Comes from Nothing
I understand this to be a quote by the Roman philosopher Lucretius, the Latin motto ex nihilo nihil fit means "nothing comes from nothing," and is used as a reminder that hard work is always required in order to achieve something.
Whether your nothing be' love, marriage, friendship, family or work — Win the day. At times we are so focused on the future that we lose sight of the day. Identify and remove the things that connect you to failure.
I Am a Human Being So Nothing Human is Strange to Me
Homo sum humani a me nihil alienum puto is a line lifted from one of the works of the Roman dramatist Terence. I was introduced to the quote while watching a Masterclass by Maya Angelou, her translation “I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.” In the play Heauton Timorumenos, or The Self-Tormentor, the line was originally one character’s response to being told to mind his own business. Given its literal meaning, it is used as a call to action advocating respect for people and cultures that appear different from our own.
“I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me.”
“If you can at least internalize a portion of that you will never be able to say of a criminal act , ‘oh I couldn’t do that,’ no matter how heinous the crime you have to say, if a human being did it, I have in me all of the components that are in her or in him. I intend to use my energies constructively as opposed to destructively. If you can do that about the negative, just think about what you can do about the positive.”