Daily: Finding Balance: Fighting and Resting in Life’s Fields
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Listen to the poetry readings:
I’ve really enjoyed the last four days. As we get closer to Christmas, there’s no longer a rush for work, and I’ve had more time to think and spend with the people around me. Here’s a little of what I read or learned this morning. I also shared this blog post about the process I’m currently trying out.
1. “You know what wine and liqueur tastes like. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand bottles pass through your bladder—you are nothing more than a filter.”—Seneca, Moral Letters, 77.16
His point might shake up anyone who sees success and adulthood as a reason to become a wine snob. The same idea could just as easily apply to foodies, tech enthusiasts, audiophiles, and others like them.
2. Words to remember: contemptuous, opulence, conduit, smidge.
3. Put yourself on death ground.
4. 孫子曰：用兵之法，有散地，有輕地，有爭地，有交地，有衢地，有重地，有圮地，有圍地，有死地。
Sun Tzu said: In the art of warfare, there are dispersive grounds, facile grounds, contentious grounds, intersecting grounds, key grounds, focal grounds, difficult grounds, encircled grounds, and death grounds.
5. 疾戰則存，不疾戰則亡者，為死地。
If one fights swiftly, survival is possible; if one does not fight swiftly, destruction is certain—this is called death ground.
6. 死地則戰。
On death ground, fight.
7. The world is driven by necessity. People only change their behavior when they absolutely have to. They feel urgency only when their survival is on the line. If losing isn’t an option for you, you’ll find a way to win.
8. Don’t just change enough to escape your problems—change enough to fix them for good.
9. Don’t try to avoid the immediate cost of making a change—if you do, you’ll end up paying the much bigger price of never getting better.
10. Poet and philosopher Johann von Schiller once wrote, “He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.”
11. Find something about yourself that needs to change today—and start working on it.
12. Mark 6:31 says, “And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’” This verse is about Jesus encouraging His disciples to take a break from their work and find rest. It highlights the importance of rest and rejuvenation, even amidst busy and demanding times.
13. The little cares that worried me,
I lost them yesterday,
Out in the fields with God.
14. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era. Known for her deeply emotional and intellectual works, she gained fame both for her poetry and her remarkable personal life.
15. Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850): A famous collection of love poems inspired by her courtship and marriage to poet Robert Browning, including the iconic line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
16. Cares by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what may happen,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay;
Among the husking of the corn
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born
Out in the fields with God.
17. As of December 2024, Greenland’s population is approximately 55,800, reflecting a slight decline from previous years.