Some Stoic wisdom

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Let’s spend the rest of July reading from the wisdom of the Stoic philosophers. Here’s one of my favourites from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

“At daybreak, when loth to rise, have this thought ready in thy mind: ‘I am rising for a man’s work.’ Am I then still peevish that I am going to do that for which I was born and for the sake of which I came into the world? Or was I made for this, that I should nuzzle under the bed-clothes and keep myself warm? ‘But this is pleasanter!’ Hast thou been made then for pleasure?”

 

 

Bulwer-Lytton 14

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2012 Winner, Romance

“I’ll never get over him,” she said to herself and the truth of that statement settled into her brain the way glitter settles on to a plastic landscape in a Christmas snow globe when she accepted the fact that she was trapped in bed between her half-ton boyfriend and the wall when he rolled over on to her nightgown and passed out, leaving her no way to climb out. — Karen Hamilton, Seabrook, TX

Bulwer-Lytton 13

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  2014 Runner-Up, Vile Puns

Dr. Fulton Crisp DMD, stoic superintendent of the prestigious Northwoods Dental College, entered the symposium for new students, took the dais amid the clamor of the first day of classes, produced a #6 dental pick from a pocket, held it aloft for all to see and spoke the immortal words, “May I have your attention please, this is not a drill, repeat this is not a drill.” — Jim Biggie

Bulwer Lytton 10

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2015 Winner, Western:

Spurs a-jangling, Black Bert sauntered to the bar and cried “this town ain’t big enough!”— then gulped a whisky, fingered his six-shooter, and belched—”so I say we annex Dry Gulch, thus increasing our tax base while simultaneously reducing fixed costs through economies of scale.”  — Joel Phillips, West Trenton, NJ