Cresting chemicals  Swings from surge to surge, up top To the summit. Up!  Daily Stoic: Searching for the safe within me is a never ending, never successful task. I will never achieve my goal.  But the worth is in the trying.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Lyric Pieces Book V, Op.54 - 4. Notturno by Edvard Grieg 

Play of boats through wind Waving to the shore and back.  Float free to the path.  Daily Stoic: I have it within me to rid myself of bad habits, physical or mental, and to instill new ones, better ones.  Today's Meditation: Today's Music: Chaconne in G Major by Andrea Falconieri

Crunch! goes the gate. Scraaaaaaape.  Changes stand out in the crowd.  Drive around til its fixed.  Daily Stoic: Appreciate what I have, the true abundance. Don't covet my neighbor's ass, nor even my own possessions.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11 by Gabriel Fauré  Daily Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale, Act 5 Scene 3

Dodging close calls all In the time of your life, live!  Furious and straifed!  Daily Stoic: Aim for being my best, doing my best, and I will always have it within me to succeed.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: 6 Mélodies, op. 5 No. 3 in E flat major: Andante soave by Fanny Mendelssohn Daily Shakespeare: As You Like It , Act 5 Scene 2

The stars shine so far,  One, then two, how about three?  We'll see. We shall see.  Daily Stoic: Our minds become habituated to our consistent thoughts. Make them good thoughts.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44, 1: Allegro by Robert Schumann

Kindness, death, and blame: Three themes of life through the years,  Each to do better.  Daily Stoic: I run a small FB meme page. Mostly, I post whatever strikes me as funny. A significant theme, however, is Be Kind. It's the page's explicit slogan and something I try to encourage in my own life, in my kids' lives, and to readers of my page.  Kindness is second only to virtue in my hierarchy of aims in life.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Una furtiva lagrima (A furtive tear) is the romanza from act 2, scene 3 of the Italian opera L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti 

Step right up! The Show™ Springs out, a leopard in flight Begins with a bang!  Daily Stoic: If I do only good, I should have nothing to be anxious about. Only and should being the operative words there.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Harlem Symphony: 3. Night Club by James P. Johnson

No one expects it,  Showers in a clear spring day,  It's crucial. Be good.  Daily Stoic: Be a good person. Be someone who is worthy of imitation.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102, 2: Andante by Dmitri Shostakovich 

Too high a summit  Salting the popcorn orange black Best goal scorers all.  Daily Stoic: Says Arnold Bennett: Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Act 1 "Letter scene" from Eugene Onegin by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky https://youtu.be/d56MMagyMXs

A fanfare rings forth,  Lightning across the sky fast Scaring the children.  Daily Stoic: I am not morally involved if my choice is not engaged. Whatever is the case does not, it is something beyond my control.  I can be concerned about the outcome, certainly, but morally culpable for something I do not, can not, control?  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Spitfire Prelude and Fugue by William Walton

What's inside counts most,  The power of an ocean  Clears all resistance. Daily Stoic: If I do good, I'm doing what I should and am having a good day regardless of what else is going on.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major opus 78, 1: Vivace no ma troppo by Johannes Brahms 

Oh what joyous times!  Date night with my darling wife,  Drive-in theater!  Daily Stoic: They say beauty is only skin deep. Virtue goes through and through.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Maiblumen blühten überall – May-flowers are Blooming Everywhere by Alexander von Zemlinsky

Publishing prima  Churly in the starry night.  A morning finish.  Daily Stoic: I have only my judgments fully within my control.   Not even my mind, as a whole, is completely tied to my will.  Hormones, food, drugs, etc. all play important roles in how my brain works (or doesn't work).  What my immediate reactions are to stimuli changes depending on what's in my system at the moment. That said, my considered reflection, my purposeful decision as to how to direct my behavior is always within my control.  I may choose to bypass this action in favor of a re action, but that is a choice.  At any moment, I have the power to delay responding or deciding until I have gathered my wits about me and made sure I am acting in accordance with nature. This is my raw material. Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: The Yellow Cake Review, 3: Farewell to Stromness by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Don't call me cowboy.  Don't learn to rope and to ride.  Do call Miss Kitty.  Daily Stoic: My kids, seemingly, don't think it's strange that dad talks with them about virtue all the time.  Even though my interest in Stoicism (and, to a lesser extent, Buddhism) has only rekindled into serious pursuit in the past few years, I have been a philosopher for many years.  I have two degrees in philosophy, but that doesn't make me a philosopher.  What makes me a philosopher is that I've seriously considered, studied, and tried to live within an examined creed since I first started 30 years ago. That creed has evolved over time as I've learned more, experienced more, and loved more.  I'm glad my kids know this side of me. And I hope that, in this at least, they emulate their dear old dad.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Ellen's Gesang III (Ave Maria), D. 839, Op. 52   by Franz Schubert...