| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!
O chalice of all common miseries!
Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne
An agony of endless centuries,
And we were vain and ignorant nor knew
That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew.
Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,
The night that covers and the lights that fade,
The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: the water fill the room to float the boat, which then
left the island, keeping under water."
"But how could she expect to get back again?" asked
the Wizard.
"Why the boat would enter the room filled with water
and after the outer door was closed a word of command
started a pump which pumped all the water from the
room. Then the boat would open and Coo-ee-oh could
enter the basement."
"I see," said the Wizard. "It is a clever
contrivance, but won't work unless one knows the magic
Glinda of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: moderate degrees it is natural and even usual to human nature to
court the arduous. It is only the extreme manifestations of the
tendency that can be regarded as a paradox.
The psychological reasons for this lie near the surface. When we
drop abstractions and take what we call our will in the act, we
see that it is a very complex function. It involves both
stimulations and inhibitions; it follows generalized habits; it
is escorted by reflective criticisms; and it leaves a good or a
bad taste of itself behind, according to the manner of the
performance. The result is that, quite apart from the immediate
pleasure which any sensible experience may give us, our own
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