“THE GRASS IS GREENER”

“The grass enclosed inside a neighbor’s fence
Appears a brighter shade of healthy green
Than that of grass you raise at small expense.
But if you played his* role inside this scene,
You’d think your former ways had made more sense.
[For less possessed is less to tend and clean.]
…The shade of grass won’t matter anyhow,
Unless you are a hungry horse or cow.”

*that of the neighbor. Once again, poetic license is my poor excuse for ambiguity.

[from “A Treasury of Cliches for Aspiring Stars” (which, of course, is part of The New House of Fame by Paul “Whitberg” Burgess

 

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“CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR”

“If you’ll just take a closer, longer look,

You’ll see that juicy, appetizing bait

Conceals a sharp and rust-encrusted hook–

Which neither tastes nor feels too nice or great

To fish it raises from a peaceful brook

And places on a human’s dinner plate.

Unless you’d be a caught and eaten fish,

Proceed with caution when you make a wish.”

[from “A Treasury of Cliches for Aspiring Stars” (which, of course, is part of The New House of Fame by Paul “Whitberg” Burgess

 

The Absurd Wit and Dubious Wisdom of a Madman

10 Epigrams by Paul Burgess
I. [“Deer Money”]
A conversation quickly makes it clear
That venison’s the meat that’s held most dear.
All people seem to talk about or know
Is how to hunt some bucks or get some doe.

II. [“An Ineffective M.O.”]
To kill with kindness murderers once tried
But found intended victims rarely died.

III. [“Epigram on an Anagram”]
A “poem” might become a mixed up “mope”
Composed by some absurdly gloomy dope.

IV. [When will you write a serious poem?”: an Epigrammatic Reply]
If writing serious and earnest rhymes,
I might be jailed for literary crimes.

V. [“Praying Mantis Mating”]
A praying mantis says, “The sex was great!”
The womantis nods before she grabs her plate.

VI. [“A Teacher’s Epitaph”]
They will appreciate me when I pass.
I know they’ll say, “He had a lot of class.”

VII. [“The Unconscious Liar”]
Don’t trust a snoring man who’s closed his eyes
Because it’s said of him, “Asleep he lies.”

VIII. [“Carpe Diem!”]
Some never feel alive, it’s often said,
Except when doing what might make them dead.

IV. [“Hobbes]
When influential monarchist Thomas Hobbes
Suggests that men in nature are like brutes,
The modern readers say, between their sobs,
“I guess some haven’t left behind their roots.”

X. [“Freud”]
The most insightful book by Sigmund Freud
Says less of mother-loving we’d avoid.
In Civ’lization and its Discontents,
There’s less of Oedipus and more of sense.

Wisdom from Seneca

All passages come from Seneca’s priceless The Letters of a Stoic [the Robin Campbell translation]

“Letter II”…It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more. What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man’s safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interests, if he is always after what is another’s and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already (34).

 

“Letter III”
-Trusting everyone is as much a fault as trusting no one (though I should call the first the worthier and the second the safer behaviour) (36).

“Letter V”
-The very name of philosophy, however modest the manner in which it is pursued, is unpopular enough as it is: imagine what the reaction would be if we started dissociating ourselves from the conventions of society. Inwardly everything should be different but our outward face should conform with the crowd…Let our aim be a way of life not diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the mob. Otherwise we shall repel and alienate the very people whose reform we desire; we shall make them, moreover, reluctant to imitate us in anything for fear they may have to imitate us in everything (37).
-…one’s life should be a compromise between the ideal and the popular morality. People should admire our way of life but they should at the same time find it understandable (37-38).

’Cease to hope,’ he [Hecato] says, ‘and you will cease to fear.’ …Widely different though they are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope…both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. Thus it is that foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse. Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present (38).

“Letter XVI”
-…making noble resolutions is not as important as keeping the resolutions you have made already. You have to preserve and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good (63).

 

“Letter XVIII

...it takes a more developed sense of fitness, on the other hand, not to make oneself a person apart, to be neither indistinguishable from those about one nor conspicuous by one’s difference, to do the same things but not in quite the same manner (66-67).
-It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself to deal with difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favours on it then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs. .If you want a man to keep his head when the crisis comes you must give him so training before it comes.

“Letter XXXVIII”
-What is required is not a lot of words but effectual ones.
-…precepts have the same features as seeds: they are of compact dimensions and they produce impressive results—given, as I say, the right sort of mind, to grasp at and assimilate them. The mind will then respond by being in its turn creative and will produce a yield exceeding what was put into it. (82)

“Letter XL”
-…there’s no state of slavery more disgraceful than one which is self-imposed (95).

“Letter XCI”
So the spirit must be trained to a realization of its lot. It must come to see that there is nothing fortune will shrink from, that she wields the same authority over emperor and empire alike and the same power over cities as over men. There’s no ground for resentment in all this. We’ve entered into a world in which these are the terms life is lived on—if you’re satisfied with that, submit to them, if you’re not, get out, whatever way you please. Resent a thing by all means if it represents an injustice decreed against yourself personally; but if this same constraint is binding on the lowest and the highest alike, make your peace with destiny, the destiny that unravels all ties (181-82).

“On the Futility of Anger”

“On the Futility of Anger” [The Rambling Prose of Paul Burgess–entry 7]
I. There are two ways to deal with the past: We can learn from painful, destructive errors that changes in mind and action need to become a priority if we want a brighter future; or we can decide that the dark past—despite being irretrievably gone—should become the dark present, which in its turn becomes the dark future.

II. Punishing someone might make the punisher think that “justice’ is being served, but revenge is not true justice, and attempting to heal one’s emotional wounds by making others suffer is as ineffective a remedy as stabbing someone else to heal one’s own stab wounds.

III. If a house burns, we should seek the cause of the accident and rebuild the house more securely rather than kick and curse its ashes. Kicking the ashes seems superficially to be futile, yet harmless, but—viewed rationally—such an act clearly harms its agents by throwing dust in their eyes, soiling their clothing, and maybe even burning their bodies.

 

“Sirens” [Morals from Mythology, or Practical Advice from the Classics] by Paul Burgess

“Sirens” [Morals from Mythology, or Practical Advice from the Classics] by Paul Burgess

To safely hear the song that Sirens sing,
You must become a legendary king.

“The Squeaky Wheel”

“The Squeaky Wheel” an epigram by Paul Burgess

Once people, early in their youth,
Have learned the vital, timeless truth
Of squeaky wheels receiving grease,
Their squeaking seems to never cease.

“On Inconsistency”–The Rambling Prose of Paul Burgess [Entry 3]

“On Inconsistency”

How unfair it is to criticize a thinker for changing a view considered earlier or perhaps only briefly! Should thinkers revere what they have written? Should they defend it, as if it were a child, solely because they gave birth to it? Should they cease to question, to explore, to consider? Should authors treat their own words as dogma to be defended rather than blocks on which they and others can build? When being refuted would better serve the advancement of knowledge, should ideas become pieces that thinkers must force into a scheme and view solely with an eye for “evidence” and “confirmation”? Why make consistent adherence, i.e. stubbornness, such a virtue?

The stigma of “fickleness” should attach only to those who change views for so-called “pragmatic reasons”. Those deserving this stigma are insincere political “flip-floppers,” trend-chasing courters of academic acclaim, and avowed intellectuals interested  only in greater mass appeal and the profit and fame that accompany such appeal; in other words, the fickle are those who only pretend to seek the noblest way or purest truth. There should be no shame in ceasing to hold a weak or false position once presented with a better alternative. What some call “inconsistency” is sometimes intellectual growth, maturity, and integrity. It requires more courage to say, “I was wrong,” than to persist in error or—as some people do—to deny that one ever held the discredited view by switching slyly to the new view once it receives authority’s sanction or attains popular acceptance.

8 Worldy Dharmas (A Mnemonic Device) By Paul Burgess

“8 Worldly Dharmas”
Confused, we cling to “this,” from that we flee,
Not seeing ways we cause our misery.
A person never finds himself at peace
Unless aware he must begin to cease
Recoiling from DISGRACE, embracing FAME,
Desiring only PRAISE, while dreading BLAME,
Lamenting LOSS, obsessing over GAIN,
Pursuing PLEASURE, and avoiding PAIN.

 

P.S. 1.While  the poem sounds too heavy-handed and didactic, it works fine as a mnemonic device. 2. The use of the masculine pronouns “he” and “himself”–as opposed to neutral plural pronouns–made it easier to stick to the meter. If I were a female writing a mnemonic device for myself, I would likely use “she” and “herself”.

Profound Insights from Dr. Burgess’s Treasury of Wisdom [Installment 1]

An excerpt from Dr. Burgess’s upcoming book on developmental psychology

…Normal humans pass through several cycles before reaching maturity. They begin as helpless, pathetic creatures incapable of doing much more than crying and producing foul substances. After a few months, they reach the stage at which they become suicidal. During this stage, unsupervised young humans will attempt to stick their fingers in electrical sockets, crawl into the middle of busy intersections, and swallow inedible objects. The parents of these young humans function essentially as “suicide watches.” Once capable of walking and talking, the young humans—now called “toddlers”—focus their destructive energies not on themselves but rather on the possessions and sanity of their parents…