"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I've known"

- Ernest Hemmingway

'Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus let me, unlamented die,
Steal from the world,
And not a stone tell where I lie.'

- Solitude,
Alexander Pope

Another snippet of the epic

Gandalf: Hail Denethor! Son of Ecthelion, Lord and Steward of Gondor, I come with tidings in this dark hour and with counsel.

Denethor: (sobbing) Perhaps you come to explain this. Perhaps, you come to tell me why my son is dead.



Gandalf: My lord there will be a time to grieve for Boromir, but it is not now. War is coming! As Steward you are charged with the defence of this city! Where are Gondor's armies?

Denethor: (spitefully) You think you are wise Mithrandir. Yet for all your subtleties you have not wisdom! Do you think that the eyes of the white tower are blind? I have seen more than you know. With your left hand you would use me as a shield against Mordor and with your right you would seek to supplant me. Oh yes, I know who rides with Theoden of Rohan. News has reached my ears of this, Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, and I will tell you now I will not yield to this ranger from the North, last of a ragged house, long bereft of Lordship!

Gandalf: Authority was not given to you, to deny the return of the King; Steward!

Denethor: The rule of Gondor is mine! And no other's!

A snippet of the epic

Pippin: Here do I swear fealty to Gondor, in sickness and in health, in living or dying, till my Lord release me, or death take me.

Denethor (bemused): And I shall not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given, fealty with love, valor with honor, disloyalty (grave); with vengeance. (to Faramir in the corner now) I do not think we should so lightly abandon our outer defenses, defenses that your brother long held intact...

Faramir: What would you have me do?

Denethor: (assertive) I will not yield the river in Pelenor unfought. Osgilliath must be re-taken...

Faramir: (pleading) My lord, Osgilliath is overrun-

Denethor: -much must be risked at War (cold). (Pause) Is there a captain here, who still has the courage to do his Lord's will?

Faramir: (hesitates) You wish now that our places had been exchanged, that I had died (hesitates) and Boromir had lived.

Denethor: (wrenching) Yes,,,I wish that

Faramir: (Resigned) Since you were robbed of Boromir, I will do what I can in his stead. (turns, walks and stops) If I shall return, think better of me father.

Denethor: (still wrenching) That will depend on the manner of your return.

Behind blue eyes.

Remember, remember, the 11th of December!

Inevitably on the 11th this poem comes back to me and fails to lose it's relevance. 4 years in a row now, with absolutely different reasons:

Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

Belated happy birthday.

War and Peace

An interesting thought that I came across while listening to a business luminary was on the division of labor.

He said that even in business organizations there were 'war-time' soldiers and 'peace-time' soldiers. That the former in the latter's place and vice versa were no better than a shepherd with a violin. That got me thinking. And it rings true now that I think about it. In the finer shades of gray, where you can typecast people, there are those of us who have always found un-ending marsh lands of conflict, and others who in the middle of a blitzkreigs have star-gazed in their Oases.
Then there are those of us, outside of the shades of gray under the ambit of white or black, bound by our state of being more than our stream of thought. Those of us who are forever restless. Those of us who are always consuming energy. Those of us with constantly shifting feet. Those of us with a high propensity to consume anything that comes our way. Those of us with inflated self images. Those of us with virulent ideas of loyalty. Those of us who battle the hostilities within them, till they give in to them, and embrace them. Then they see the world differently. They see the world as a series of subjugations. And like a sport they start keeping count of when they subjugated and were subjugated. They begin to make love to their hostilities and end up married to them.
It is outside the shades of gray that the balance of the world is kept, between those of us who are warriors and those of us who are peacemakers. Conflict is the beginning and the end of everything.

"This is not life Will, it is stolen season."

Shakespeare in Love