Poets.

So I am going through a blog I had kept starting back in 2010 and I am finding so many good quotes and pictures that I posted almost a decade ago.  I may be re-blogging some of them here.  I love going back through my old notebooks and journals and in this case, my blog to re-feel the things I felt back then.  And to see how far I have come and where I may still need some more work.

At the time I maintained this particular blog I was working in an office full-time and terribly depressed.  To give you an idea of the environment, there were about 60-70 of us in cubicles in a large open office space made up of thick cement walls, exposed cables and wires, florescent lights, and not a single window.

There was one glass door that exited to the employee parking lot.  And through that glass door I could see one skinny, little tree.  I remember looking out at that tree through every season for over 3 1/2 years.  That tree was all I had for 40+ hours a week to see what the weather was like outside.

This old blog was like a window to me.  I would look up pictures and quotes to post as much as I could in my free time because they made me smile, gave me hope, and helped me still feel connected to the outside world.

If you are interested in seeing the whole blog it is at http://easyluckyorfree-blog.tumblr.com/page/153

Here is one quote that is fitting for what I have been working on.

"A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.This may sound easy, but it isn’t. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking. Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know,you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time - and whenever we do it, we are not poets. If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed. And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die. Does this sound dismal? It isn’t. It’s the most wonderful life on earth.Or so I feel."

e.e. cummings