Reading the news these days can feel like watching a car wreck ahead of you on the high way.  It seems to happen in slow motion and you aren’t sure whether your quick swerve, brakes, or dumb let will let you avoid joining the collision.  In a recent warning about US depression and China implosion (via @RonKJeffries) I enjoyed the analogy to this Ken Kesey and Hunter S. Thompson anecdote:

The ever egotistical Mr. Thompson was surprised that John Lennon had been murdered while he had not.

“I mean, I’ve pissed off quite a few citizens in my time,” Thompson said.
“But you’ve never disappointed them,” Kesey replied.

Nice reflections from the Dalai Lama, which were forwarded to me via email from my cousin, and with the nature of such email messages, I have no idea who made the slide show. At the turn of the year, I find it nice to look back while looking forward and I enjoyed these gentle reminders…

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

Remember that  not getting what you want  is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Best viewed full screen, here’s the slide show on slideshare:

Dalai Lama 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mantra lama)

“But, Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day…”
“No,” I answered, “I don’t agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, the you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.”

— From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by e. l. klonigsburg

I try to read everythink that my son reads for school.  This year they are reading novels for what they now call “language arts” (and we used to call “English”).  When I started reading From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I had absolutely no recollection of the title and author; however I had always remembered a story about two kids who ran away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  I was delighted to re-disccover this much loved book from my childhood.  You should definitely read it, even if you are no longer in fifth grade.