"I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between."

This is one of Ayn Rand's quotes from "The Fountainhead".

It is a very interesting quote. Why you may ask, why does it interest me? I aim to follow this rule in any work that I do. Anything that we do, should be done with complete honesty and effort. What is the use of a half-hearted attempt at a particular job? Does it not reflect on our capability? Does it not reflect on our character? Our work ethic?

At times, it feels like I'm being naive. But then, I wonder... What gives us the right to say some jobs are worthless and some aren't? Nothing. Whatever a person does, is his choice or necessity. But he has the choice to do it well. And if he doesn't want to do it all, then why continue in that job? If it is a necessity, then why do we complain about it? One might say, if we can't complain to our friends and close ones, who else do we talk to... but just ranting about something doesn't necessarily make it better. Maybe, instead of that, we need to take charge of our own lives and do something. The definition of that something might be different for different people. Does this mean something good? Or something right? By whose standards?

This reminds me of another one of her quotes from "Atlas Shrugged" ... "For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it."

How true.

Chemistry...

I have always wondered what draws a person to another. We make friends so easily with some people... Its instinctual... Chemistry, its termed. You have a good chemistry, people say. But I have always wondered how it works. Haven't you?

It is defined as a force acting between two people that tends to draw them together and resist their separation. Causes are stated as similarity (Birds of a feather flock together) , more exposure to a person, complementarity (Opposites attract) and so on and so forth. But it still doesn't explain it completely. It is easier to just presume it to be another one of the mysterious workings of our mind and let it be. But the question still stands...

Words of Kahlil Gibran

Some of the verses of Kahlil Gibran that I found absolutely beautiful and inspiring. Here they are...

"My house says to me, 'Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.'
And the road says to me, 'Come and follow me, for I am your future.'
And I say to both my house and the road,
'I have no past, nor have I a future.
If I stay here, there is a going in my staying;
And if I go there, there is a staying in my going.
Only love and death change all things.' "

"Give me an ear and I will give you a voice... "

"My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues."

"Poetry is not an opinion expressed. It is a song that rises from a bleeding wound or a smiling mouth."

"You see but your shadow, when you turn your back on the sun."

"Should we all confess our sins to one another, we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we reveal our virtues, we would also laugh for the same cause."

"If it were not for our conception of weights and measures, we would stand in awe of the firefly as we do before the sun."

"The truly great man is he who would master no one and he who would be mastered by none."

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."

"Behold here is a paradox: the deep and the high are nearer to one another than the mid level to either."

Every waking moment he spends,
Thinking... Talking... Worrying,
About his victories, about his loss.
Guilt, hangs around his neck,
Just like an albatross...
'Is it me?' he wonders,
'Is it me causing this mess?
What is it that I'm doing wrong?
Or is it all just, in my head?'
It eats away at his soul,
Every waking moment of day.
Till there's nothing left of him,
Only emptiness where his heart lay...

The webs people weave,
About their lives, about their death,
About their hopes and their dreams.
No matter who they are or where they're from,
There's always something they fear.
Something they love, something they hate,
Something that's much too dear.
We fear the loss, we fear the change,
But question it? We wouldn't dare...
What if something goes wrong, we say.
But what really matters is the love we share.
What is it that escapes us?
Why are things the way they are?
Is there something that we aren't doing?
Or are we just trying too hard...?