Perpetual Change

a recounting by Gino Signoracci

the newly coronated young king said to his court of sages and scribes, 'compile all the wisdom of the world in a library, so that i may peruse the volumes at my leisure and know all there is to know.'

the sages and scribes dutifully searched the kingdoms far and near for all the wise words that had been written. after ten years, they presented the complete collection to the king. gaping in astonishment at the mass of literature contained in the library's innumerable cavernous rooms, the king said to them, 'unfortunately, with all the affairs of the kingdom, i will never have enough time to read all of these books. please condense them into one book, so that i may read it and understand the timeless wisdom that all these works have in common.'

his subjects set to work. after twenty years of tireless effort, they had finally read every single book in the library. within another twenty years they had finally agreed on what to include in the single volume, and, having written it, presented it to the king, who by now was an old man. he addressed them, 'thank you for your labors; however, as i am aging and my vision and hearing are no longer what they were, i do not have the patience to read even this one book, large as it is. therefore i ask you to present its wisdom to me in a single sentence.'

though flustered, his subjects set to work on the king's request. in the meantime, he was taken ill. finally, after a year had passed, the head sage approached the king on his deathbed. the king whispered, 'well? have you a sentence for me?' the sage nodded, leaned toward the king's ear, and said, 'this, too, shall pass.'

i paraphrased it. as near as i can tell the original is from jewish lore.

Labels: guest writer

posted by jjs @ 1:00 PM 0 comments

Familiarization

Well, over the last 4 days, I have been driving around and penned
many nice blog posts in my head, but considering that I was on the
twisty, hilly roads of Tuscany, I didn't write any of them down. And
now I am leaving on my first trip, taking 17 rather serious riders
over about 300 kilometers of Tuscany by bike for the next 6 days. I
am very happy that I only have to ride every other day. Everyone that
hears of these trips (that isn't American) says "oh, it must be
Americans. No one else would be so crazy on their vacation." And
yet they all still think of us as fat.

Anyway, the poetic will have to give way to the immediate because I
know that there is no way I will be writing again for at least a
week. So, a familiarization is when my company gives me a big van, a
credit card, cell phone, itinerary, some food money, hotel money, and
says, "Go. Explore." And then they pay me for my time! More than
once I thought that I am being paid for something that I love to do.
It is a bit rushed, but in the 4 days: I covered all those biking
routes (by car), visited Abbeys with chanting; a 2 Michelin-starred
restaurant (one is a big deal); Etruscan tombs and museums; half
dozen perched Medieval villages; some of the nicest and most
picturesque boutique hotels that I have ever seen; toured through
Chianti region and around Siena; saw a pheasant, rabbit and two boar
(I thought they had all been hunted into virtual extinction), and
drank a lot of expresso. It was great. More than once, I got
stressed by the driving and then just pulled over and turned my head
to take in the AMAZING views. It should be quite a trip.

Then I get to go home for a few weeks, hopefully see you all, and
then I get to come back and do another fam(iliarization) for a
different trip! Now I just need to figure out how this all fits into
existence.

_____________________________________________________________
Click for free info on college degrees and make $150K/ year
http://track.juno.com/s/lc?u=http://tagline.untd.us/fc/CAaCX09mPRBV0P1tFORUfFDO8Wy5oD3R/

posted by jjs @ 1:31 AM 2 comments