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That's Life

An Inspiring Poem – A Psalm Of Life

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Proverbs, anecdotes, poems and quotations influenced all of us to some extent when we were growing up, whether we knew it or not and whether now in later life, we care to admit it or not. Some of them would have shaped our outlook, attitude and even our personality, hopefully for the better.

A poem which greatly influenced me is
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm Of Life”.

I’ll first reproduce the poem in its entirety here without any distraction, and then below it is an annotated version to help explain its meaning (to me). Maybe it will also inspire someone else who reads this now.

A Psalm of Life

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Hover your cursor over the highlighted text to get its annotation. Hope this will help you appreciate the poem better.

A Psalm of Life

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

I was inspired by this poem when I was 15 years old and to this day, this is the only poem I can still recite by heart. Not counting “Ba Ba Black Sheep….” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star….”

Over to you. Which poem inspired you?

That's Life

The Karmic Effect of Your Integrity ( or lack of…)

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It’s a strange day today, it is.

I set out to accept a rights shares issue for a stock we owned. Since the rights shares acceptance document required a RM10 revenue stamp as well as payment for the lots by Banker’s Draft or Money Order, it seemed logical to get both the revenue stamp and  Money Order from the Post Office, rather than get a Banker’s Draft from the bank and then get the revenue stamp from the Post Office.

Skipped 62 positions! Then karma took over.

I arrived at the Post Office just after 10.30am and took my queue number. Good grief! My number was 3185 and they were currently serving only 3025. That’s 160 positions down the queue! Never mind, I was in high spirit and I settled down to wait patiently. However, by 12 noon, the number called was only 3110. Then I noticed that quite a number of people couldn’t wait and had left, so that quite a few numbers were blown. That’s when a light bulb lit up in my head and I started paying attention to the calling pattern. 3116- counter 6! 3116- counter 6! Two times. No taker. Next number. 3117- counter 6! 3117- counter 6! Again, no taker. And so it went on, until someone claimed a position. 3122- counter 6! 3122- counter 6! No-one. 3123- counter 6! I stepped to the counter confidently, and got served! Great! Skipped 62 positions! Then karma took over.

“Intgerity is doing the right thing even when no-one is watching”.

Now, many of us ( and all Politicians ) mouth the word, “Integrity”, but how many of us really know what it means? It was my son, way back when he was in Primary 6, who told his mum and dad that his teacher taught him that “Intgerity is doing the right thing even when no-one is watching”.
Wow! The sheer simplicity of the definition belies the profoundness of that idea.

So it is clear that my personal integrity was lost this morning at the Post Office. And what was my karmic consequence?

“Sorry sir, the server has problem and I cannot process the money order application”.

“Sorry sir, the server has problem and I cannot process the money order application”. Can you beat that? After I was smirking and congratulating myself for jumping 62 positions, and after standing at the counter twiddling my thumbs for 10 minutes, the counter clerk told me she’s getting errors from the server and cannot proceed. Can I come back later in the afternoon, she asked.

OK, no problem, my high-spirit was still largely intact even though it was dampened slightly. Never mind, go and take my lunch and return later. And that’s what I did. Upon reaching home,

I received a SMS from my son which mentioned a potential disaster.

I received a SMS from my son which mentioned a potential disaster. Another setback. Stay cool. After lunch, I prepared to go back to the Post Office. As I opened the car-door, the alarm went off. I slammed shut the car-door and turned off the alarm. Then clicked the remote to unlock the

And no matter how many times I clicked the remote to set/reset the lock/alarm, the red light remained ON.

door, but I noticed the car alarm red indicator lamp was still ON. And no matter how many times I clicked the remote to set/reset the lock/alarm, the red light remained ON. That would mean the alarm is primed and will sound if I open the car door. Gosh! Yet another setback! I finally broke out of my paralysis and yanked open the car door, despite the red alarm indicator lamp. No alarm sounded. What the…..??? Started the car engine and the alarm light went off. Strange indeed!

From 10.30am to 3.30pm, and I still couldn’t get my Money Order.

I arrived back at the Post Office at 3.00pm and looked for the counter clerk because she told me that I need not queue again; just to go straight to her. She was not at her seat. Her colleague said she was on tea-break and will be back at 3.30pm. Ouch! Another long wait. Finally she returned and I promptly went to her, but she said the server was still down. Grrrrrr! From 10.30am to 3.30pm, and I still couldn’t get my Money Order. No choice but to walk some distance away to the nearest CIMB Bank branch to get my Banker’s Draft, instead. That warrants another story, another time. Finally got my Banker’s Draft and went back to the Post Office to post the rights shares application letter at 4.30pm.

So boys and girls, remember the moral of this story and never compromise your integrity. ‘Nuf said?

By the way, when I reached home, I received another SMS from my son to say that the earlier potential disaster was a false alarm. Be grateful for small blessings! Looks like my karmic reaction to the momentary lapse in my integrity has run its course…for now.

Books

What do Hawking, Bryson, Lloyd have in common?

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bryson100x133 hawking100x133 lloyd100x133

What do Hawking, Bryson, Lloyd have in common? From their biographies, it would appear that they have nothing in common at all.  Except that they all call the UK their home ( Bryson was born in America, but mostly stayed in UK), and both Bill Bryson and Christopher Lloyd were successful journalists at some point in their lives.

STEPHEN HAWKING is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.  Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

BILL BRYSON does not have such an illustrious academic background, having initially dropped out of university to go backpacking and only finished his formal college degree circa 1975. But nevertheless, his writings and various books showed a complete mastery of the language and the unique ability to render arcane subjects into a comprehensible read for ordinary folks like me.  He excelled in his career as a journalist par excellent, rising to chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. In 2005 Bryson was appointed chancellor of University of Dunham.

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD has had a broad and comprehensive career both as a journalist, writer and as a general manager in the education business. After graduating from Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1991 with two scholarships and a double first-class degree in History, he became a graduate trainee journalist on The Sunday Times newspaper and was trained at the City University where he gained a diploma in newspaper journalism . Christopher Lloyd now divides his time between writing books and delivering interactive lectures / workshops to schools, societies, literary festivals and other organisations.

So what do they have in common? Or more correctly, what do the three books,  A Brief History of Time (S. Hawking),  A  Short History of Nearly Everything (B. Bryson), and What on Earth Happened? (C. Lloyd) have in common?

All three of them start with the Big Bang, the story of how our known Universe began; from a singularity of infinite mass that “exploded” into an expanding Universe that we know today. That’s the common ground for all three books.

While ABHOT went on to  describe the concepts of Space-Time, Black Holes, Worm Holes, Time Travel and the possible Unification of Physics, ASHONE describes our lonely Earth and Life and finally how we came to be.  WOEH takes it further from there and goes on to describe our endeavours leading to the eventual “fates of human civilisations and the natural world fused into a global whole.”

bryson360x480Of the three books, ASHONE describes the Big Bang, the formation of the Universe, the Solar System and gentle introduction to quantum mechanics, the best, in a highly readable and comprehensible manner. In 2004 Bryson won the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book with A Short History of Nearly Everything. In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication.

hawking360x480On the other hand, ABHOT has sold more than 10 million copies. It was also on the London Sunday Times best-seller list for more than four years. ABHOT remains a “must-read” for any non-physicist who wishes to acquaint himself/herself with the origins of our Universe and all the peculiarities of quantum mechanics with its unusual ensemble of quarks, mesons, bosons and fermions (in his follow-up books, “The Universe in a Nutshell” and “The Grand Design” with Leonard Mlodinow).

lloyd360x480WOEH continues the story by painting the big picture of the Universe, Earth,  Nature, Life and human civilisations  to present-day. It is written in such a way that you can jump  in at  any point. In the end, as the big picture unfurls, you will see the connecting together of the dots of the past giving them meaning and making them memorable through visualization, context, cause and effect.  In 1994 Christopher Lloyd won the Texaco award for the Science Journalist of the Year.

“The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.”  – Samuel Butler