My Anthem

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

what is desiderata?

WRITING has been a passion of mine among others, like painting and reading, since my early school days. Those were hazy, lazy days when young people had time for top-spinning, spider catching, swimming in former mining pools (a dangerous pastime!) in the outdoors, and for indoor leisure, there was no TV, and the strongest pull for me were comics and library books. As the saying goes, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention", I ventured into writing in my secondary schooldays to earn some pocket money, so that my siblings and I could indulge in the weekend cheap matinee (as the cinema was about the next best thing to a luxury outing).

Since my youth, I have adopted a poem called "The Desiderata of Happiness"by Max Ehrmann as my philosophical guide to daily living. Desiderata starts with "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste ..." and ends with an optimistic "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." (I'll publish this poem in full later - but meanwhile, readers can go to Yahoo! and Search for this easily...)

"Desiderata" means "features or characteristics deemed as essential or desirable to..."; hence one may say the desiderata of happiness may consist of, among others, good health, a balanced education, a professional job, lots of money to spare after the essentials for daily living, or even a carefree vagabond lifestyle ... to each his/her own!

I shall end my first blog as an Introduction here, just past midnight, March 15, 2005 - "Beware the Ides of March!" for those with some exposure to Shakespeare, who would be quoted in my writings quite a lot in future. Meanwhile, greetings to all, please find time for fine reading, especially Poetry, so that we can puruse a common journey of upgrading our quality of life. Wishing you all Good Health and Progress in All Your Endeavours.

5 comments:

InMine said...

Hi, we cross path (under my other ID)at screenshots a few times. I keep my blog at inmine.blogspot.com (my second blog page after killing the first one). Definitely will stop by again to read whay you have to say.

Lone said...

Hi, great to see another blogger startup. And this with poetry too. Will visit to be delighted and entertained and be informed.

chong y l said...

To yan, inmine and lone, a Warm Welcome to my new cyberhome and make yourself comfy and chatty.

Let's be engaged in Conversations; sometimes we may even disagree in our views, but always I subscribe to the maxim: agreeing to be agreeable in our disagreements.

Wishing you Good Health, and All Things Beautiful&Nice!

Anonymous said...

Hello,

Stumbled upon your blog by chance from Yasmin's site. Glad we all enjoyed her movie Sepet.

Do drop by my humble blog at sepetgal.blogspot.com.

Look forward to chat with u soon. Take care...

chong y l said...

Sepatgal:

Welcome, clearly you're a film-fan and creative.
I'm an avid movie-goer too, enjoy a wide spectrum of genres --western, detective, espionage, romance, classics, NOT the latest action-packed techno-crazy ones! just over-doing the tech stuff and no credible story lines, sometimes the producer, director treat the audience as kinddie kids, or worse, nimcompoops...(I sometimes can't avoid seeing such over TV just so that I can expand my hroizon, thus give my views...) See you again, I'd visit thee at thy abode too.