Post: #1

Suppose I am some boy.

You're sitting on a park bench drinking coffee from your thermos. It's 7 am. And I walk up to you.

I say, "I'm sorry to bother you but I wonder if you can show me the way." You ask me where I'm going and I reply, "I have no idea." You reply with, "Well, what are you looking for son?" And I say, "Wisdom from someone who has more scars than I."

You tell me to take seat but I can't, I have to catch that train coming over the bend. This train was planning to take me to nowhere. But after talking to you, I hope this train takes me to somewhere.

On my journey to nowhere but hopefully somewhere, I have nothing but time to think about your words. So I ask you:

Give me one and only one of each of the following:

One song.
One poem.
One art piece
One movie.
One parable, allegory, text, or fable

to teach me your wisdom about life, death, love, hope, pain, or whatever else you feel is relevant. Your job is not to teach me what to do or how to live a better life. Your job is simply to teach me what is.

There's more, You are not allowed to tell me what wisdom or lessons that these things will teach me. I have to figure that out on my own. I only want you to show me the door and let me walk though it to discover my own meaning in the poem, art, song, and allegory that you gave me.

Can you give me something real?

Post: #2

   

Post: #3

Life is like a box of chocolates.

Post: #4

Quote:Lepanto
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Post: #5

This deserves a more thorough reflection and a substantive post, but I'll dive in. The first instinct is usually the correct one

One song: Like a Rolling Stone



One poem: Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes - Pablo Neruda
One art piece: Las Meninas - Diego Velazquez
One movie: Powers of Ten



One parable, allegory, text, or fable: Sermon on the Mount

Post: #6

(04-25-2018 09:05 PM)YoungBlade Wrote:  

This will take some pondering. The high hopes song reminds of me how beautiful children see the world and how quickly they lose the ability of life in color and beauty in life as they grow older and become more jaded. That is my interpretation of a very complex and well-written song.

The painting reminds me of femininity and beauty -- the only thing that can heal this broken world.

The poetic Edda speaks of how to be a good friend to the men around you.

Post: #7

(04-25-2018 09:10 PM)getdownonit Wrote:  This deserves a more thorough reflection and a substantive post, but I'll dive in. The first instinct is usually the correct one

One poem: Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes - Pablo Neruda

Quote:I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind which would touch her ear.

Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.

Though this may be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these the last verses I write for her.

Damn,

The true story and internal struggle of every one of us who travels the world. Feeling love but parting ways. Knowing you love her but chasing freedom and convincing yourself that you don't, only to realize that maybe you did love her after all. The paradox.

Post: #8

The Vampire

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you or I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair—
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand!

A fool there was and his goods he spent,
(Even as you or I!)
Honour and faith and a sure intent
(And it wasn’t the least what the lady meant),
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned
Belong to the woman who didn’t know why
(And now we know that she never knew why)
And did not understand!

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,
(Even as you or I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—
(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died—
(Even as you or I!)

And it isn’t the shame and it isn’t the blame
That stings like a white-hot brand—
It’s coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)
And never could understand!













"One never loves enough" - R. D. Laing

Post: #9

Here are mine:

Movie:





Painting:



Song:




Poem - Statement:

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

(Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969)

Parable:

Post: #10

I might give a more thoughtful answer later, but assuming in this situation that I was unprepared for such a question here are the first things off of my head:

One song - Rammstein - Rosenrot





One poem. I don't know many poems in English so I will bend the rules a bit and suggest two movies instead, one of them containing a poem.
So I reccomend Russian movie the Stalker and it has a good poem at one point in there somewhere at second half. Sorry if you don't know Russian.





One art piece - School of Athens:
It's a huge picture and I couldn't find a version under allowed 500 kilobytes so I am putting in only the central fragment:
   

One movie: Godfather Part 1






One parable - The well known fairy tale about Princess and the Pea.

You will probably not understand it's occult wisdom without further explanation, it's not intuitive to a modern person anymore, but I observe the rules and explain no further.

   

Post: #11

(04-25-2018 08:03 PM)LINUX Wrote:  Give me one and only one of each of the following:

One song.
One poem.
One art piece
One movie.
One parable, allegory, text, or fable

There's more, You are not allowed to tell me what wisdom or lessons that these things will teach me. I have to figure that out on my own. I only want you to show me the door and let me walk though it to discover my own meaning in the poem, art, song, and allegory that you gave me.

Can you give me something real?

This thread is like crack to me. I am so arrogant that I think I have the perfect answers.

But I have to leave off the poem, because I could never connect with / understand the medium of poetry. You could substitute the Bob Dylan song "Mississippi" for the poem I would pick.

Song - Beethoven's 9th symphony





Art - the city of Venice (not any particular piece of architecture... of that, either Frank Lloyd Wright or some Florentine renaissance building would do... but the audacity to build such a labyrinthine and romantic city on a swamp)



Movie - "La regle du jeu" (The Rules Of The Game) by Renoir... really contains everything you'd need, the whole tragi-comedy-bro/romance of life... not the greatest movie ever but certainly the most essential by far, and requires at least 3 viewings to properly appreciate





Parable - the parable of the talents by Jesus

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=ESV

Post: #12

One song.





One poem.





One art piece



One movie.





One parable, allegory, text, or fable

Once upon a time, there was a frog planning to swim across a river. A scorpion, very nicely and politely and with sweet words, asked if the frog wouldn't mind, as a favour, to carry it across? The frog agreed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion began stinging the frog. As the frog felt the poisonous venom enter its body, it asked "Why did you sting me? Now we both will drown!" To which the scorpion meekly replied, "I couldn't help it, I'm a scorpion, it's in my nature to sting things."

Post: #13

One song : One by Metallica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBiHyazMOc
One poem : I'll replace poem with novel - 1984.
One art piece :
One movie : Akira.
One parable, allegory, text, or fable : Noah's Ark; although I will have to explain.

Never mind notions of boats, or pairs of animals or number of days of floods.
The more grand notion of a society that allows itself to fall into hedonism & indulgence will encounter ruin. While the wise & righteous shall survive.

Post: #14

Thomas the Rhymer

All of your choices where my second choices, except the song and the art. I like your art choice as it is, but I just think it's too simplistic for long inspiration.

Were I not be putting in things I ended up putting in I would put in exactly the same things about poem, movie and parable.

I would argue that your song and art piece choice doesn't fit well together. Also Conan prays to Grom/Thor instead of Jesus, so how do you justify it?

Post: #15

One Youtube Link -

Post: #16

Excellent thread idea...

Song:

Kurt Vile - Life Like This





Poem


Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.


Nothing Gold Can Stay
- Robert Frost

Art

   

Movie

12 Angry Men





Parable

Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.

One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically, “you must be so sad.”

“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed! “Not only did your horse return, but you received two more. What great fortune you have!”

“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.

we'll see

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Now your son cannot help you with your farming,” they said. “What terrible luck you have!”

“We’ll see,” replied the old farmer.

The following week, military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Such great news. You must be so happy!”

The man smiled to himself and said once again.

“We’ll see,”

- source

Post: #17

@Rigsby

Rocking the early Van Gogh.

Post: #18

Excellent, The kind of thread I signed up for RvF to begin with:

One Song:





One Art:

Wanderer Above the Sea Fog



One Poem:

'Once more into the Fray...Into the last good fight I'll ever know. Live and Die on this day...Live and die on this day...

One Film:

The Edge (1997)





One text:

Lord of the Rings

'All the “great secrets” under the mountains had turned out to be just empty night: there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering. He was altogether wretched. He hated the dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the Ring most of all.

I have never found a better description and warnings of/against addiction or going down a path you know you shouldn't.
So much for "fantasy", brutal as hell.

Post: #19

(04-26-2018 06:26 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  One song.





One poem.





One art piece



One movie.





One parable, allegory, text, or fable

Once upon a time, there was a frog planning to swim across a river. A scorpion, very nicely and politely and with sweet words, asked if the frog wouldn't mind, as a favour, to carry it across? The frog agreed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion began stinging the frog. As the frog felt the poisonous venom enter its body, it asked "Why did you sting me? Now we both will drown!" To which the scorpion meekly replied, "I couldn't help it, I'm a scorpion, it's in my nature to sting things."

You're thinking goes deep. Deeper than most people I've seen. I once watched a documentary on the smartest man in the world with an IQ over 200. They asked him if he was so smart why he wasn't on Jeprody winning millions. He replied with "being able to obtain random facts, information, irrelevant things does not make you a genius or intelligent, it only makes you a garbage disposal of facts. Real intelligence is high level thinking that is both deep and troubling and often doesn't even have answers but only produces deeper queations. This is always why I so often feel a disconnect from the forum, so many post about statistics, racism, Donald Trump, nationalism etc, but very few people write about their troubles and pain. Maybe it's ego. Who knows.

This is what I take from your collection:

What a friend we have in Jesus is the light. The salvation and through him, I shall not be afraid. Light and love heals all.

The poem by poe is the darkness, the things that keep us awake at night. The demons and shadows that haunt us.

The yin and yang, you can not have light without darkness. They go together, pain, pleasure, love and hurt is our nature, the way of the universe which makes it exist as it is -- white and black, hot and cold, light and darkness.

Conan shows the wheel of pain, the grind and horrors of life that doesn't kill us, but through that pain and torture makes us a man and makes us able to stand our ground instead of continuing being a slave to our own emotions like so many people we know. Conan reminds me of the allegory of the devil and refusing to give up on life -"The Devil whispered in my ear, “You're not strong enough to withstand the storm.” Then I turned my head and whispered back, “I am the fucking storm."

The scorpion -- well that you isn't it, and I, and all of us. The imperfection that is life is. The people we have hurt and the forgiveness we seek because we are imperfect beings.

well done

Post: #20

(04-25-2018 08:03 PM)LINUX Wrote:  Suppose I am some boy.

You're sitting on a park bench drinking coffee from your thermos. It's 7 am. And I walk up to you.

I say, "I'm sorry to bother you but I wonder if you can show me the way." You ask me where I'm going and I reply, "I have no idea." You reply with, "Well, what are you looking for son?" And I say, "Wisdom from someone who has more scars than I."

You tell me to take seat but I can't, I have to catch that train coming over the bend. This train was planning to take me to nowhere. But after talking to you, I hope this train takes me to somewhere.

On my journey to nowhere but hopefully somewhere, I have nothing but time to think about your words. So I ask you:

Give me one and only one of each of the following:

One song.
One poem.
One art piece
One movie.
One parable, allegory, text, or fable

to teach me your wisdom about life, death, love, hope, pain, or whatever else you feel is relevant. Your job is not to teach me what to do or how to live a better life. Your job is simply to teach me what is.

There's more, You are not allowed to tell me what wisdom or lessons that these things will teach me. I have to figure that out on my own. I only want you to show me the door and let me walk though it to discover my own meaning in the poem, art, song, and allegory that you gave me.

Can you give me something real?

I talk to these dudes all day. You know what they say?

I wouldn't be able to be in Florida if I didn't buy commercial property.

I made a mistake by not paying enough into SS when I had my own business

Your health is most important.

You think these guys give a fuck about art and poems? they care more about having an orange soda.

Post: #21

Great idea Linux!

Song:




Poem:
The things they carried

They trudged through many battlefields
Eating M&Ms and swallowing fear
Just little boys in big army boots
The things they carried; always near


They reminisced about lost loved ones
Regaling while they threw grenades
They blocked it out the best they could
but the things they carried never faded


They lost fights and some lost their lives
Things hit them hard, they still fired
Smoking and laughing...It was all to hide
the things they carried; now in them wired


They put on brave faces and bullet-proof vests
Patching each other up as wounds bled
but even pure morphine could not numb
the things they carried in their head


Then it was over. They won, they were told
The lucky got home and some even married
but wenty years later, still swallowing fear
Nothing could ease the things they carried

-Tim O'Brien

Art:


Christ Before Pilate: Large Plate, 1635

This print exemplifies popular depictions of the Passion of Christ, which often united multiple parts of the New Testament story into one overwhelming scene, from the first half of the 17th century. Here Rembrandt van Rijn combined the Presentation of Christ to the people by Pontius Pilate and the Mocking of Christ by the people of Jerusalem into one large and deeply moving etching. Although surrounded by the Pharisees and a motley crowd of mocking onlookers, Christ appears disengaged as he looks to the heavens, his hands clasped in prayer.

(Rembrandt included himself in the painting, the young man to the left of Chrit's hand leaning on ledge.)

Movie:


Parable:
Be seated.

Men, all this stuff you hear about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Battle is the most significant competition in which a man can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be killed in a major battle. Every man is scared in his first action. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. But the real hero is the man who fights even though he's scared. Some men will get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour, and for some it takes days. But the real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

All through your army career you men have bitched about what you call 'this chicken-shit drilling.' That is all for a purpose—to ensure instant obedience to orders and to create constant alertness. This must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who is not always on his toes. But the drilling has made veterans of all you men. You are ready! A man has to be alert all the time if he expects to keep on breathing. If not, some German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit. There are four hundred neatly marked graves in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job—but they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before his officer did.

An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, and fights as a team. This individual hero stuff is bullshit. The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real battle than they do about fucking. And we have the best team—we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor bastards we're going up against.

All the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Americans don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.

Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy fighting alongside him. We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

One of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were moving toward Tunis. I stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing up there. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, sir.' 'Isn't it a little unhealthy up there right now?' I asked. 'Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No sir, but you sure as hell do.' Now, there was a real soldier. A real man. A man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty appeared at the time.

And you should have seen the trucks on the road to Gabès. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they crawled along those son-of-a-bitch roads, never stopping, never deviating from their course with shells bursting all around them. Many of the men drove over 40 consecutive hours. We got through on good old American guts. These were not combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost.

Sure, we all want to go home. We want to get this war over with. But you can't win a war lying down. The quickest way to get it over with is to get the bastards who started it. We want to get the hell over there and clean the goddamn thing up, and then get at those purple-pissing Japs. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. So keep moving. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper-hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler.

When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually. The hell with that. My men don't dig foxholes. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have or ever will have. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.

Some of you men are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. War is a bloody business, a killing business. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them, spill their blood or they will spill yours. Shoot them in the guts. Rip open their belly. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt from your face and you realize that it's not dirt, it's the blood and gut of what was once your best friend, you'll know what to do.

I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to advance and keep on advancing. We're going to go through the enemy like shit through a tinhorn.

There will be some complaints that we're pushing our people too hard. I don't give a damn about such complaints. I believe that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing harder means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that. My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit either. I want men like the lieutenant in Libya who, with a Luger against his chest, swept aside the gun with his hand, jerked his helmet off with the other and busted the hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he picked up the gun and he killed another German. All this time the man had a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you!

Don't forget, you don't know I'm here at all. No word of that fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell they did with me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamned Germans. Some day, I want them to rise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl 'Ach! It's the goddamned Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again!'

Then there's one thing you men will be able to say when this war is over and you get back home. Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?' You won't have to cough and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say 'Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named George Patton!'

All right, you sons of bitches. You know how I feel. I'll be proud to lead you wonderful guys in battle anytime, anywhere. That's all.

General George S. Patton November 11th, 1885 – December 21st, 1945

Post: #22

I'll bite:

1) One Song:





2) One Poem

http://scartissue.us/2013/09/30/poem-of-...r-mission/

3) One Movie



4) One Art Piece



5) One Parable, Allegory, Text, Fable

Prodigal Son.

G

Post: #23

(04-26-2018 03:35 PM)LINUX Wrote:  This is what I take from your collection:

What a friend we have in Jesus is the light. The salvation and through him, I shall not be afraid. Light and love heals all.

The poem by poe is the darkness, the things that keep us awake at night. The demons and shadows that haunt us.

The yin and yang, you can not have light without darkness. They go together, pain, pleasure, love and hurt is our nature, the way of the universe which makes it exist as it is -- white and black, hot and cold, light and darkness.

Conan shows the wheel of pain, the grind and horrors of life that doesn't kill us, but through that pain and torture makes us a man and makes us able to stand our ground instead of continuing being a slave to our own emotions like so many people we know. Conan reminds me of the allegory of the devil and refusing to give up on life -"The Devil whispered in my ear, “You're not strong enough to withstand the storm.” Then I turned my head and whispered back, “I am the fucking storm."

The scorpion -- well that you isn't it, and I, and all of us. The imperfection that is life is. The people we have hurt and the forgiveness we seek because we are imperfect beings.

well done

You've only scratched the surface of what I was trying to say, but your interpretation was the general direction I was aiming for.

That said, this discussion could go on forever and rapidly hit the point of diminishing returns, as Ecclesiastes 12, TLB translation, warns us : "But, my son, be warned: there is no end of opinions ready to be expressed. Studying them can go on forever and become very exhausting!"

So I'm not going to comment further.

But for whatever reason you started this thread, I hope my contribution assisted you in whatever you were looking for.

Post: #24

Post: #25

Henry Millers ”Tropic of Capricorn”, and these words to live by: ”Don’t let the bastards grind you down”