Category Archives: Arts

Arts, Literature

Set it free in the world

SIR RICHARD MAITLAND, who lived in the 16th century, was an eminent judge who became blind at the age of sixty-five.

Thinking he could no longer practise law, and not yet ready to retire from a productive life, he turned to the study of – of all things – literature.

He then went on to make a name for himself as a poet.

Now, the good judge may have needed someone to write his poems down, and he probably never saw one of them in print, but not being able to see the end result of his endeavours did not stop him adding to the world’s store of beauty.

Nor should it stop us.

Too often people hestitate to help because they can’t see how it will all work out in the end.

Don’t let that concern you. If you have beauty, kindness or even poetry to give, then set it free in the world.

It will take care of itself from there.

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Arts

I will leave it to you

TESTIMONY

IT is generally thought that writing was developed as an aid to commerce. Like the letter sent to the merchant Ea-nasir in about 1750 BC, complaining about his inferior copper.

The tablet hardened over the centuries and the complaint is now engraved and etched in stone in the British Museum.

If the businessman who wrote the letter had known this would be how the world remembered him, might he have been tempted to write something else?

Most of our written communications tend to be electronic these days. Ephemeral. How about bucking that trend and writing something on paper or card a reader might think worth preserving?

I will leave it to you to decide which words you use, but I envisage and can only guess they won’t be complaining ones.

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Arts

Self-centred chaos

DOING THINGS FOR OTHERS

A STORY given by a professor to a class of students is well worth hearing about. To each of them he gave a yellow balloon and asked them to blow their happiness into the balloon and then tie their name tag on to it.

Then he told them to throw the balloons into the air and bat them around for a while.

“Now, find your happiness,” he said.

What followed was chaos. People got in each other’s way, they tripped over furniture and some balloons were burst. Very few students recovered their own balloon in the time allotted.

Then the professor suggested a different way.

“Pick up the balloon closest to you. Then give it to the person named on the tag.”

Two minutes later, everyone had their “happiness” back.

Do you see what he did? He taught his students that if we concentrate on ourselves, very few will end up happy. But if we all set out to do things for others, before too long everyone is happy!

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