I’m going to tell you a story. A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic on the communal well, so as whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went under the spell, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, and which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policeman and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair, the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying; let us go and drink from the communal well. Then, we will be the same as them.

And that was what they did; the king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.

by: Paulo Coelho, from: Veronika Decides to Die

Sometime ago, I read this novel By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho.

It was a nice lovey dovey sort. and of course presents a lot more to to ponder.

Specially the following few paras which I’ve been reading again and again… pondering over them and thinking about it.

1
I’ve paid a considerable price for the little I have gained. I’ve been forced to deny myself many things I’ve wanted, to abandon so many roads that were open to me. I’ve sacrificed my dreams in the name of a larger dream — a peaceful soul. I didn’t want to give up that peace.

2
The gods throw the dice, and they don’t ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don’t care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don’t care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don’t want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they’re throwing the dice — and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck.

3
I’ve been in love before. It’s like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You’re not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. you think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

“But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him/her for three hours and forget him/her for two minutes. If s/he’s not there, you feel like an addict who can’t get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you’re willing to do anything for love.

Been listening to this song for some while and it really moves me. I don’t have words to say, the lyrics says it all; Committed to life by Asian Dub Foundation from the album Community Music.

I’ll be honest with you:
I hate war in all it’s forms-
Physical, psychological, spiritual… emotional… environmental
I hate war…
And i hate having to struggle - i honestly do
Because i wish i had been into a world where it was
Unnecessary.
This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a
Struggler
Has been forced on me by oppression.
Otherwise i would be a sculptor, or a gardener,
Carpenter - you know, i would be free to be so much more…

I guess part of me or a part of who i am, a part of what i do
Is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler
But… i do it because i’m committed to life
We can’t avoid it, we can’t run away from it
Because to do that is to be… cowardice-
To do that is to be subservient… to devils, subservient to
Evil and so that the only way to live on this planet
With any human dignity at the moment is to struggle.

Written by: p. andrade, a. shakur, das, pandit, savale, tailor, zaman

Read it somewhere so thought of sharing.

Butterfly / For those who understand

The place where I live is a ridge, little away from the township. The place is green and beautiful with trees, grass, plants, flowers of various colors and sizes.

Plenty of insects, hoppers, and small birds start humming, singing, and jumping from plant to plant, tee to tree, and flower to flower, in the pleasant rays of the early morning sun.

During the morning walk, I observe innumerable species of colorful insects and wonder, that, this piece of land is nothing but a negligible spec on the surface of the planet, it has got all these, then the number and types of various creatures that exist on the entire plane is definitely beyond human imagination.

A couple of days back, during my morning walk a tiny butterfly, less than a centimeter, came floating in the mild breeze and sat on my arm. Its color and the design on the wings was breath taking. I kept gazing at her and felt ‘this is certainly not created for naught”.

The butterfly asked me “you seem to be lost in something”.
I smiled and said, “I am trying to figure out the purpose of creation of the world”.
She laughed and said “God created this vast universe, only to bring me into existence”.

And then she flew away.

Once upon a time there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colourful marvellous feathers. In short, he was a creature made to fly about freely in the sky, bringing joy to everyone who saw him.

One day, a woman saw this bord and fell in loe with him. She watched his flight, her outh wide in amazement, her heart pounding, her eyes shining with excitement. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird.

But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she felt envy, envy for the bird’s ability to fly.
Ad she felt alone.

And she thought: ‘I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.’

The bird, who was in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage.

She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: ‘Now you have everything you could possibly want.’ However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the truee meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning his cage.

One day, the bird died. Te woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds.

If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the was bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too was lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. ‘Why have you come?’ she asked Death. ‘So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,’ Death replied. ‘If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him even more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.’

from the diary of Maria written in “Eleven Minutes” by “Paulo Coelho”

I’ve been listening to this song quite a lot these days. The lyrics are good and it sung very well. I simply Love it.

(City of Angels Movie Soundtrack Lyrics)

And I’d give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t want to miss you tonight

And I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you’re alive

And I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

Now listening and relating to it…

Let me watch by the fire and remember my days
And it may be a trick of the firelight
But the flickering pages that trouble my sight
Is a book I’m afraid to write

It’s the book of my days, it’s the book of my life
And it’s cut like a fruit on the blade of a knife
And it’s all there to see as the section reveals
There’s some sorrow in every life

If it reads like a puzzle, a wandering maze
Then I won’t understand ’til the end of my days
I’m still forced to remember,
Remember the words of my life

There are promises broken and promises kept
Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept
There’s a chapter of secrets, and words to confess
If I lose everything that I possess
There’s a chapter on loss and a ghost who won’t die
There’s a chapter on love where the ink’s never dry
There are sentences served in a prison I built out of lies.

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

There’s a chapter on fathers a chapter on sons
There are pages of conflicts that nobody won
And the battles you lost and your bitter defeat,
There’s a page where we fail to meet

There are tales of good fortune that couldn’t be planned
There’s a chapter on god that I don’t understand
There’s a promise of Heaven and Hell but I’m damned if I see

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

Now the daylight’s returning
And if one sentence is true
All these pages are burning
And all that’s left is you

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

Sting & Police The Book Of My Life lyrics

seems like everything is changing… it’s getting tougher than ever before… life’s slipping out of hands… making me feel less urged and concerned about taking control of any or everything…

the connectedness is killing me… making me reballious… but i wanna keep hold of myself… afterall i will go through all this… the difficult path… everything around seems conspiring against me, my will…

now listening to Powerless by josh + nelly furtado … and it sounds so true… i feel so powerless:

Powerless (Say What You Want)

Paint my face in your magazines
Make it look whiter than it seems
Paint me over with your dreams
Shove away my ethnicity
Burn every notion that I may have a flame inside to fight
And say just what is on my mind
Without offending your might

Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless what are you gonna do
So say what you want
Say what you want

I saw her face outside today
Weatherworn, looking all the rage
They took her passion and her gaze and made a poster
Now it¡¦s moccasins we sport
We take the culture and contort
Perhaps only to distort what we are hiding

Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless what are you gonna do
But say what you want
Say what you want

Hey you, the one outside, are you ever gonna get in, get in
Hey you, the one that don¡¦t fit in, how ya, how ya gonna get in
Hey you, the one outside, are you ever gonna get in with your
Broken teeth, broken jaw, broken mojo

Yeah, this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do

Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do

and my ‘best friend’ said
just “bye” to me tonightwhat should i say
my friend’s gone now
I have never expected such a thing

well then..
life’s like that…
more than what we can only think of…
full of surprises…
full of uncontrollable circumstances…

unexpected…
surprising…
inexplicable events…
lousy mistakes…
and foolish decisions…

there aren’t any tears…
but somebody’s wailing…

and i am sitting here..
rendering it in prose..
the pain inside…
that grows and flows…

the pain is hurting..
but that I have to say..
i just didn’t understood..
the sensitivities of the issues…
i said to “be practical”
but stayed myself impractical

I wasn’t even feeling..
the fantasy driven bloom..
I kept adrift towards the moon…
I was alone, all by myself..
and when I realized…
I was far away from shore..

there’s so much more to say…
but the words are running away…
my dreams are really shattered…
like a broken trust that matters..

the night seems long..
and the pain is losing the grip..
and that’s the only reason…
i could come back to sleep..

I love the music of the morning
as rain drops
beat out their rhythms
on my bedroom window panes.I have heard that beat before
under tin roofs
in faraway jungles,
where lonesome young warriors,
not understanding
the rhythms of the rain,
nor life,
cried to that beat
of that falling rain.

Now, that I am laying here
next to you,
I have no fears.
No anger.
No worries about bombs
or tomorrows.

I have learned to love
that rhythm of the rain.
I have learned to love you.
I have learned to love me.

So, I am satisfied
just sleeping here ,
while listening to the falling rain
and the beating of your heart.
I have learned to love both.
as if somehow,
they were only one,
and not separate hearts.

just liked it… felt like sharing….