Light a candle and hope that it glows...

Check out the brilliant Lea Michele in this preview for the Fall Series, Glee.

Quite a turn from the role that she created in Spring Awakening off/on-Broadway, a musical adaptation of an 1891 German tragi-comedy (that errs on the side of tragi-) by Frank Wedekind. Fox Studios having aired the pilot as a "special" (remember those?) earlier in the summer, and after a 10-city promitional tour, this show has already gained an all-out cult following. I'm looking forward to drinking the Kool-Aid.

And now a swift turn to the poetic, little excerpt-lets from the mentioned Spring Awakening, music by Duncan Sheik, lyrics by Steven Sater:

Where I go,

When I go there,

No more memory any more,

Only men on distant ships,

Women with them swimming with them to shore,

Where I go,

When I go there,

No more whispering any more,

Only hymns upon your lips,

A mystic wisdom rising with them to the shore...

Where I go,

When I go there,

No more shadows any more,

Only men with golden fins,

The rythm in them rocking with them to shore,

Where I go,

When I go there,

No more weaping any more,

Only in and out your lips,

The broken wishes washing with them to shore...

Love me, just a bit,

We'll wander down, where the winds sigh...

My demeanor of late has been heavily influenced by one question: Will my attitude/my actions further my way to a happier life? Will saying the thing I'm about to say take a step in that direction? All of this being coloured by an enormous amount of work to do at the ol' job - which I sincerely don't mind, and find enjoyable.

What I am butting up against is the percieved limitations of my control over my current circumstances. There are many philosophies that address this time-long question...from religiosos to nihilists the essence remains:

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. - Matthew 17:20

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. - Franz Kafka

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. - Ayn Rand

There are no facts, only interpretations. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination. - Immanuel Kant

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation. - Plato

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. - Nelson Mandela

And two other quotes on different notes, that are inspiring me right now:

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. - Franz Kafka

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. - Plato

Yet bizarrely, the thing that inspires me most, is that, in lives as short or shorter than mine, such development of thought and philosophy was achieved.