🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@freemo haven't read any Pratchett in probably 10 years, clearly this needs to change

Hey, I'm using Mastodon for a few weeks now. Over time I got some ideas about Mastodon instances and FOSS in general. I am here because I would like to share it with the world (preferably without being limited to 500 characters) and would like to hear your feedback

#introductions

@freemo You've inspired me to share my favourite poem. Original is in Polish, so I'll post a translation to reach a wider audience.

"Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are"

-- Wisława Szymborska, Nothing Twice (pl: Nic dwa razy)

@stux We do that in the USA too, except instead of trauma teddies we shoot your dog.

@freemo
'Twas righteous! 😊

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.

Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.

"What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" thus asks the last man, and blinks.

The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.

"We have invented happiness," say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...

One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.

No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.

"Formerly, all the world was mad," say the most refined, and they blink...

One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.

"We have invented happiness," say the last men, and they blink.

-- Thus spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche

#Nietzscche #poetry #poem #philosophy #quote #Quotes

@freemo Reminds me of a poem/Parable by Kahlil Gibran.:

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, “Let us bathe in the sea.”

Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away.

And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.

And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty, and they know her notwithstanding her garments. And some there be who know the face of Ugliness, and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.

- The Wanderer, by Kahlil Gibran

The Song of the Wondering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

-- W.B. Yeats

This poem really resonated with me. I think its because as a kid I would constantly dream of this magical woman who lived in my basement and when I woke up I could never find her.

#poetry #poem #literature #english

Another #poem from about 8 years ago...

http://jeffreyfreeman.me/brambled-velvet-bloody-thorns/

= Brambled velvet, bloody thorns. =

The sweetest warmth on my tongue.
A distant memory of a soft touch that never was.
The thorns are a poison, and the fruit its cure.
The sweet fruit that turns the ash in my mouth to wine,
the peaceful ignorance of my intoxication.
Numb to the destruction as I tear away the velvet fruit,
leaving a mutilated husk, its life blood dripping.
The desolate brambles now rotting in the sun.
Its life for mine, a life I never wished to take,
as if there was some other end, some perfect end.
But it was all a dream.
A haunting dream.
An eternal dream.
A dream more real than life.
A dream…

#poems #poetry