Chronicle of a Cynical Uncle #1

Let's imagine there exists a cantankerous old man who's so grouchy that he'll berate you for giving him birthday presents, and who's so cynical that the first thing that'll occur to him on seeing a cute puppy on his doorstep would be:

'What kind of scam is this?'

Let's also imagine that this irritable old geezer is your uncle and that he's just discovered a book of inspirational quotes. Naturally, his blood pressure is going to shoot through the roof at the almost physically painful optimism, and he's going to want to rectify that with a dash of vitriol. Much to the nephew's amusement, of course.

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” Theodore Roosevelt.
“But the other half takes forever.”

“We can’t help everyone but everyone can help someone.” Ronald Reagan
“That someone is usually yourself.”

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” Carl Sagan
“It will either be known and dismissed as something extraordinarily mundane, or will forever continue waiting.”

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” Vince Lombardi
“I can eat every single edible thing in the house in one hour!”

“Change your thoughts and you can change the world.”  Norman Vincent Peale
“Only if your thoughts change to - ‘the world is unchangeable!’”

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“I ate kilos and kilos of pizza, got fat, ran a marathon, and collapsed and died halfway through. This is my postcard from limbo because the Man Up There cannot decide which way to send me.”

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” Milton Berle
“Then it knocks so hard your door collapses on you and kills you.”

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” Anne Frank
“But others’ happiness makes me unhappy. Pretty little paradox eh?”

“The things that we love tell us what we are.” Thomas Aquinas
“I like sitting in a corner eating junk all day, so I must be a… dustbin.”

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” Jean de la Bruyere
“Miracles are difficulties you don’t know are difficulties yet.”

“To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.” Lao Tzu
“.. as in, gives up and passes you by.”

“What we change inwardly will change outer reality.” Plutarch
“I’m sorry, but all I can think of is spicy food and upset stomachs.”

“Try to be like the turtle - at ease in your own shell.” - Bill Copeland
“Be like the turtle, and whole world will be like the stick - trying to poke you out for no reason.”

“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” Henry David Thoreau
“The sun appears to go round the Earth, but the vice versa is reality. (Even if the world appears to turn around, it is probably just you bending over backwards.)”

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.”
“And you will be blinded and hit by a truck as you cross the street.”

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot
“Short of amputation, I think my childhood’s really lost.”

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” Bernard Williams
“Imaginary things can be infinite in dimension.”

“The glow of one warm thought to me is worth more than money.” Thomas Jefferson
“I tried to buy an apple with a tenth of a warm thought yesterday - it didn’t work. I said ‘Morning!’”

“You change your life by changing your heart.” Max Lucado
“Dr. Christiaan Barnard was after my time. It was certainly a change though - I was dead.”

“Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.” Dale Carnegie
“Makes sense because I usually dream I’m a blithering coward running away from furry cats.”

“Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout.” Morihei Ueshiba
“Alien? Aliens? Aliens vs Predator - surely not?! Just can’t place this movie, man!”

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” Amelia Barr
“Marvels lie in the eye of the beholder.”

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Thomas Paine
“Nostradamus is passe, Paine just predicted nuclear weapons here, man!”

Thanks to this website for providing lots and lots of fodder for my uncle to work out his ulcers. More to come, soon!

The Tale of Four Assignments, Three Score Sheets and Lots and Lots of Pain

Alright, the inspiration for this poem is an insanely painful experience I had recently writing down sixty pages worth of assignments in one day. (I'll probably write down the anecdote on my personal blog sometime.) So, I decided to try my hand at a poetic metre called 'iambic tetrameter' - briefly, it means that every line in the poem is comprised of four pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. Notice how it lends a sing-song quality to the lines below? Try to read the poem aloud stressing and unstressing naturally and see if you enjoy it. :)

Here's a reading of the poem. Sorry, I might have got carried away with some of the enunciations.

Oh there was once a mighty man
He’d wrestle lions to the floor
He, faster than a cheetah, ran
And had a mind as sharp as four.

But ev’n the keenest spear it’s told –
Shall meet a shield too firm and break.
And so it proved, the hero bold
“Oh God I’m great, but this – can’t take!”

“Assignments four, and sheets three score,
A day is all is giv’n myself.”
He wailed and cried for time some more
Until enraged was God himself.

“Your star is nothing save a  ball - 
Of dust, and lost to wind in flow.”
These words that stung our hero’s gall
Inspired him like a wicked blow.

His weap’n the pen, his music hard
A sheet he turned and so began
The finest penwork since the Bard.
From page to page it spanned.

But hold! Two pairs of hours passed;
And only but a fifth was done.
Appeared spent, our hero – lost –
In pain, his arm and leg as one.

A tiny rest, and crack of light
The monster, will he rise to face?
Of course, it’s only fair to right
A losing war by changing place.

Each page he filled was foes he slew
All fair was foul, as art turned scrawl
As noon emerged, he forged on true
To see a third was left in all!

And now, with victory close away
Awoke his pride, en masse, and swelled
He drank and ate and made his hay
Until the close of day was felt.

The Devil’s whisper now in ear
“Come on, it’s done, your name is made
This final battle’s nought to fear
The war is won, so let’s parade!”

He laughed and cried as ag’ny spread
From limb to limb, from flesh to brain
In time, as fell the last, he said,
(to God and Devil) “Never again!”