On the tails of that post about wrapping up the previous year, it may still be quite timely to discuss some annual rituals with which one can reorient themselves on the bumpy, roadkill-infested highway of life.

(By the way, never saw much point in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do like the idea of themes.)

Books

I’m big on reading (though not nearly as big as I’d like to be these days), so setting up a catalogue of evergreen books seems like a no-brainer:

• Atomic Habits
• The Bed of Procrustes
• Crucial Conversations
• Fooled by Randomness
• The Gift of Fear
• Meditations
• Never Split the Difference
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
• …and the entire Discworld series

It’s a bit much to reread the whole list from start to finish (even without the Discworld series) though, so maybe just doing a rotating subset, or a quick scan of the summary will suffice. (Some of these ramble on like they’re being paid by the page.)

Looks like I’ve saved a snippet from Meditations, on moderation in attachment:

Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.

Man, that Marcus guy was dealing with a whole ‘nother class of problems.

Years later I’m still trying to load a mental model of him and his Stoicism into my brain. I think the main problem is that my default network rarely has this dude running before I hit a problem, and it’s somewhat harder to go into zen mode after letting loose a loud a cry of dismay.

I guess I need to meditate more.

Leadership Code

Wrote this as part of a leadership course at work. I didn’t necessarily mean all of it for work, but I guess there are relevant bits. It could be pared down some, but I’ll probably only get to that if the list grows someday.

The idea behind this is that whenever hard decisions have to be made, you come back to your Code as your north star:

1. People first, then results. (People are in fact part of the results.)
2. Failing to achieve the perfect ending is better than succeeding with sacrificing someone along the way.
3. Become strong enough to withstand being deceived or betrayed, because there are those who cannot survive without the benefit of the doubt.
4. War has started while you were ignorant.
5. You are the last person to stop believing in them.
6. You make problems go away. If you do it well enough, no one even knows you did anything.

Poetry

I’m not classy enough to read poems on the regular, but just about classy enough to enjoy letting a few swirl in my mind like fine wine.

Well, actually, I’m not classy enough to appreciate fine wine either.

But anyway, the transition to a new year usually puts one in that slow, decadent mood for the dripping honey that is poetry.

Auguries of Innocence

(This is a long one and I’m only bothering with the bits I liked.)

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
…
The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.
…
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
…
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
…
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
…
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
…

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the uplifting spring rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Masks

She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through.
Then passed right by -
And never knew.

Not So Far As the Forest

That chill is in the air
Which the wise know well, and even have learned to bear.
This joy, I know,
Will soon be under snow.
…

Nothing Gold Can Stay

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.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Witch-Wife

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

It’s a little late, but Happy New Year, you well-washed hominids.