„Alles seit je. Nie was anderes. Immer versucht. Immer gescheitert. Einerlei. Wieder versuchen. Wieder scheitern. Besser scheitern.“
“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
(„Worstward Ho“, 1983,)

Kichner fährt fort: “Das ist nicht nur ein Lieblingssatz von mir, sondern auch von George Tabori.” Taboris Inszenierung von Becketts Godot habe ich am Berliner Ensemble gesehen. Sehr heiter!.
Sie wird noch gespielt dort. Ignaz Kirchners Beckett Zitat passt zum Titel dieses Blogs aus Rudyard Kiplings “if”:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss

Hat jemand Lust mit nach Wien zu fahren?

Kahlil Gibran

I am a (non paying) member of XING and their Humanistic Initiative. Laurie D. Lundquist is the (new) co-moderator of this group. Today Laurie send me this beautiful quote by  Kahlil Gibran. Gibran played an important role in my family 21 years ago. Butmore about that: (maybe) another time….
Thanks Laurie, you made my day! (my evening to be honest).

“Verschone mich mit Weisheit, die nie weint,
Philosophie, die nie lacht,
und Grösse, unfähig vor Kindern sich zu verneigen.”

“Chief” Bromden
der “Ich Erzähler” in Ken Keseys Roman
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

“Einer flog über das Kuckucksnest” habe ich geliebt. 1975 als der Film heraus kam, konnte ich noch nicht ahnen wie nah ich selber der Anstalt und deren Geschichte in diesem Land kommen würde. McMurphy, (Jack Nicholson) zahlt einen hohen Preis für seine Lust am Aufruhr. Zu recht wurden dem Film fünf Oscars verliehen: “Bester Film, Beste Regie, Bestes Drehbuch nach literarischer Vorlage, Bester Hauptdarsteller, Beste Hauptdarstellerin”. Kesey´s Buch  las ich viel später. Es erzählt die Geschichte aus der Sicht von “Häuptling Bromden” und endet mit dem Satz, der als Motto über diesem Blogbeitrag steht: “Ich bin lange fort gewesen…”. Der Film endet mit dem fliehenden Häuptling, der den Waschtisch aus der Verankerung reisst und (in Zeitlupe) aus dem Fenster der Anstalt flieht. Das Buch verharrt auch an seinem Ende in einer merkwürdigen Schwebe: Dem Häuptling ist die Flucht gelungen. “Sein” Buch ist beendet, die Geschichte erzählt. Aber seine Flucht scheint beendet. Nicht: “ich bin (schon) lange fort…” sondern: “fort gewesen…“. Nur wenig versöhnlicher im Englischen: “I been away a long time”.

Also:wohl wieder eingefangen, in die Anstalt zurückgekehrt. Und, wohl keiner da, der die Geschichte für  uns und den Häuptling weiter erzählt.

Spinnen wir also den Faden des Scheiterns, des Aufruhrs und der Triumphe weiter: Triumph and Disaster sendet wieder.

“I been away a long time,” are the last words of chief Bromden after he told us Mc Murphys story in Ken Keseys Novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. The novel ends more pessimistic then the famous Film by Miloš Forman“. Obviously the chief is back again the absence has ended.We are back again. After a long silence.

Be the change you want to see in the world

Today (again by chance?) I stumble into this video on the same issue, titled
“We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For”

Unfortunately the video likeso many has been removed from youtube. Meanwhile Barack Obama has used this quote in some of his speaches.

At the end of this video there is a quote by the great anthropologist Margaret Mead:

Never doubt, that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has.

I first read this Mead quote in the mid 90´s on one of my first journeys to the USA. I loved eating “Ben & Jerry´s Ice Cream” and read  through their company brochures  in one of their parlors in Georgetown Washington D.C. I still have and sometimes read their brochures about their concept of “caring capitalism“. The second proverb I remember from my visit to their shop is: “If it´s not fun, why do it?“. It was very popular among me and my friends at that time. On one of my later journeys I visited the Ben & Jerry´s factory in Burlington, Vermont including a cemetery for Ice Cream Flavors no longer produced. Today Ben & Jerry´s is no longer owned by its founders. They sold it to Unilever. So there Vision is just a brand of onoe of those multinationals.
A brand is not a mission. But that is a different story.

Ein Video passend zum Gandhi Zitat vor einigen Tagen. Am Ende des Films steht ohne Quellenangabe: “Never doubt, that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has”. Dieser Spruch ist von Margaret Mead. Das wiederum weiss ich durch einen Besuch in den Eiscreme Salons der beiden Vermonter Freaks Ben & Jerry. Vor vielen Jahren in Washington DC. Ein spannendes Konzept, ihr “caring capitalism“, was sie leider nicht daran gehindert hat, das Ganze an Unilever zu verkaufen, wo die Vision der Gründer doch arg zu blosser Markenpolitik degeneriert.

Be the change you want to see in the world

Mahatma Gandhi

Leben,
lieben,
lachen,
liegen,
warten,
hoffen,
kommen,
flüstern,
schreien,
Wir

But this has nothing to do with their new years greeting. I could not even find it on their page. I will shoot them an email to find out whether these traffic wizards really expressed their own thoughts or used some ancient source. Stay tuned and now without a further a do:

Holy Grail / Fountain of Youth?
Many people who came before you searched for success and never
found it. They genuinely thought of it as the Holy Grail or the
Fountain of Youth – something to be captured at the end of a long
quest. Some believed it was a relationship to be won. Other
supposed it was a desired position to be earned or an object to be
possessed.

However, success is none of those things. It’s not a destination to
be reached. It is a process – a journey to be taken. Moreover, you
do it one day at a time.

It needs most people some time to discover what they were created
for. If you are willing, you can explore the world and constantly
learn more about your purpose every day. You can engage in
activities that gradually help you grow a little more in mind,
body, or spirit. In addition, you can perform some act – large or
small – that generously helps others.

Success is knowing your purpose in life, sowing seeds that benefit
others, and growing to your maximum potential.

The door to your potential is waiting for you. The key is to be on
the journey. Keep at it day in and day out. If you are, you’re a
success today. Furthermore, you’ll be a success tomorrow.

Some people see things as they are and say why?
I dream of things that never were and say why not?
                                                                     Robert F. Kennedy