The G Chi
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson“We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application and learn them so well that words become works.”
~ Seneca
As we move through life, everybody (whether we are aware of it or not) develops an individual worldview, a system of ethics and metaphysics which amounts to a philosophy of life. The choices we make in our lives are dictated by this story we tell ourselves. We're more likely to live and die ‘well’ if we make ourselves aware of that philosophy and practice it actively each day.
Your personal life philosophy doesn't need to be a strictly defined, specific school of thought. In fact, your personal life philosophy is not static, it evolves. What works at certain stages of life may seem immature at other stages. What you believed yesterday may seem absurd today, only to have its value and evident wisom return tomorrow.
Consider aspects from all philosophies that help to build a ‘good’ life. Keep the best and fuck the rest. Only you yourself can decide which aspects those will be.
The G Chi provides a collection of ponderings, an eclectic compendium of contemplations; a tapestry of essays, aphorisms, musings, quotations and words of relative wisdom, loosely organized by theme, created for my father’s only son’s personal benefit, clarity and self-inspiration.
A lot of folks may see these as obvious truisms, things so common sense that even a toddler should understand. Well I would agree that most toddlers probably do understand the core concepts behind these observations yet most 'adults' could use a little reminding from time to time.
The exercise of writing this stuff down slows down my thinking process while assisting in internalizing the content, allow me to ponder thoughts more deliberately.
Writing in general helps me think and to clarify and organize my thoughts. A thought in the brain that stays a thought never gets born.
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
– Flannery O’Connor
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
~Joan Didion
So…I write this for myself, the one I talk to in my head, to learn and understand, to help myself on my journey.
“Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."
~ Mark Twain
Say YES to life!
“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
~ Desiderata, Max Ehrmann, 1927