| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: poison, as a snake will.
"THUU" ("It is dried up"--Literally, a rotted out tree-stump),
said Mowgli; and motioning Kaa away, he picked up the ankus,
setting the White Cobra free.
"The King's Treasure needs a new Warden, he said gravely. "Thuu,
thou hast not done well. Run to and fro and make sport, Thuu!"
"I am ashamed. Kill me!" hissed the White Cobra.
"There has been too much talk of killing. We will go now.
I take the thorn-pointed thing, Thuu, because I have fought
and worsted thee."
"See, then, that the thing does not kill thee at last. It is
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: THEAETETUS: Yes, there are many such; which of them do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean such as sifting, straining, winnowing, threshing.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And besides these there are a great many more, such as carding,
spinning, adjusting the warp and the woof; and thousands of similar
expressions are used in the arts.
THEAETETUS: Of what are they to be patterns, and what are we going to do
with them all?
STRANGER: I think that in all of these there is implied a notion of
division.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: heard of simple men selling their souls for love or power to some
grotesque devil. The most ordinary intelligence can perceive
without much reflection that anything of the sort is bound to be
a fool's bargain. I don't lay claim to particular wisdom because
of my dislike and distrust of such transactions. It may be my
sea-training acting upon a natural disposition to keep good hold
on the one thing really mine, but the fact is that I have a
positive horror of losing even for one moving moment that full
possession of myself which is the first condition of good
service. And I have carried my notion of good service from my
earlier into my later existence. I, who have never sought in the
Some Reminiscences |
