I was wondering and wrote about it
Michael On a morning walk my wife Jennifer said “I read something irritating. They said they were elderly.” I asked “How old were they?” She replied,”Late 60s, 67 and 69.” To which I started to laugh. We’re 62. We are elderly.
Or are we? We are old. But elderly? That has a connotation of being fragile with diminished capacity. We feel pretty vital.
What do you think is meant by elderly?
This is wrongly attributed to Ghandi, and I got it from the Linus crowd.
Quote Investigator
First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
Quote Investigator has a very detailed investigation into the saying.
As of September 2019, Andrew Yang is in stage two. You may be interested in his biography information on Wikipedia.
Let’s check back in on him in January.
Because she’s so badass great.
It was a tough time. My father in law was in a rehab center. Jennifer had both of us in bad states. On this day I started to write. How else could I relearn how to write? And so I did. In three weeks I filled up 100 pages of progressively better handwriting. One thing I did not do was watch TV. OK, I did watch one PBS documentary and one movie. But I couldn’t take it. I wrote instead. And spent time with Mom, and Cheryl mostly. Other relatives also came by. But mostly I wrote. And thought about what was ahead.
You have to start someplace.
I wrote about the Six Books YOU can and Should Write, click through to read about them. Recently I came across a seventh type, the commonplace book.
What is that? Wikipedia explains, “Such books are essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas.” They were also complied by women, before women were allowed into colleges. That’s one example of what the literary form is.
You might consider this blog a Commonplace gathering of what I find to be interesting. There is so much more to collect.
You should be aware of Ryan Holiday’s introduction to commonplace books, here. I will quote him, from the start, because it’s a compelling thing to read and hang onto, as he did in his commonplace book.
It was about the great Athenian general Themistocles. Before the battle of Salamis, he was locked in a vigorous debate with a Spartan general about potential strategies for defeating the Persians. Themistocles was clearly in the minority with his views (but which ultimately turned out to be right and saved Western Civilization). He continued to interrupt and contradict the other generals. Finally, the Spartan general threatened to strike Themistocles if he didn’t shut up and stop. “Strike!” Themistocles shouted back, “But listen!”
Ryan Holidy, in Though Catalog
Strike! But listen! In the meantime, I’m going to figure out the difference between a commonplace book and a scrap book.