LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Cheap wisdom

— Bumper sticker of the week: At least the war on the middle class is going well.

— Quote of the week: “It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” Henry David Thoreau

—A war that can’t be won, that never should have been fought, and W’s solution: send more troops. That’s desperately stupid.

— The wisdom of Joseph Campbell (Was a professor and the world’s leading authority on mythology and comparative religion):

• Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you

ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

• Hell is life drying up.

• There is no security in following the call to adventure.

• Follow your bliss.

• You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.

• We are all Christ’s and don’t realize it.

• We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

• What is your religion telling you? How to be a Catholic? A Jew? Or how to be a human being?

• Marriage is not a love affair, it’s an ordeal. It is a religious exercise, a sacrament, the grace of participating in another life.

— The Knox County Board Democrats need to pick the next States Attorney, to fill in for Paul Mangieri, who is moving on to become a judge. Luckily, the law states that it has to be a Democrat. I have the distinct impression that some of them are confused.

— Dying: Dying is not all its cracked up to be. It’s been seven years since I almost bit the bullet, kicked the bucket, crossed over, passed on, bought the farm. You joke about it until it stares you in the face. Death, that is. Then it’s not so funny. You come face to face with that last second. Here one minute, gone the next. I ain’t all that eager to see what comes next. I sometimes wonder how things would have been had I died. Would my wife remarry? She surely couldn’t find anyone as nice. You come to a realization that things would go on without you. The most you can hope for is that you would be remembered. Your only shot at immortality, to be remembered. But for what?

— Wisdom from “The Alchemist,” by Paulo Coelho:

• It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

• It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.

• When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

• The Alchemists spent years in the laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals.

• They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world.

• They discovered that the purification of the metals led to a purification of themselves.

• Men dream more about coming home than about leaving.

• Wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.

• Your eyes show the strength of your soul.

• Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives.

• That’s what Alchemists do. They show that when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.