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Freesia is an interesting plant: its fragrance is earthy, the stem of which rustic, but a bounty of which always very pleasing to the eyes.

 

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Spent some of my afternoon today reading about the History of Coffee. I am never a great coffee drinker but I love the aroma of coffee, be it from a street corner cafeteria, one's home kitchen on a cold morning, or from a roadside cafeteria after a long tiring journey. There is something special about the aroma, a smell capable of stirring one’s sense of welling being, re-energizing one’s tiring or slacken nerves, and one’s lust  for a good living.

An interesting excerpt from the History of Coffee: One of the most interesting facts in the history of the coffee drink is that wherever it has been introduced it has spelled revolution. It has been the world’s most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants and to foes of liberty of thought and action.

 

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Someone lent me a book: Blue Ocean Strategy -- How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Found more and more of my longing for the big picture of everything. It is wrong to sink into the mundane side of everything. To focus less to to focus more; To stop to read is to think and plan the next move.

This is another play of the playwright Oscar Wilde. I enjoyed reading it as much as his The Importance of Being Earnest. In a good play it seems words are always conversed no more or less, settings placed neither superfluously nor wanting-ly.  Every detail was set to its right proportion and so was the extent of the characters developed and revealed in the play.

This is the charm of a well-written play.  No more and no less for everything. If only life could be so beautifully arranged. That would save loads of time squandering and human confusion.

There seems, more often than not, in Oscar’s plays the presence of a character of hedonism and contrastingly another of proportion and morality.  Like in A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth held the opinion that life was not worthy living except for forever seeking pleasure and temptation and then the surrender to them; while Mrs. Arbuthnot, who in her youth was subject to Lord Illingworth’s charm and bore an illegitimate son as a consequence, was a respectable widow who lived her life with a full devotion to her son and who was sensible and conformed to social rules as what was right and wrong.

Then we also have the American puritan Miss Hester Worsley who was frank and honest in her judgement of the world. She was an outsider to the British society in the play and who was also the play ‘saver’ in the end to end the misery of Mrs. Arbuthnot and the wrath and resentfulness of Gerald, the son of Mrs. Arbuthnot  by consenting herself to be Gerald’s wife.

There is never witticism lacking in Oscar’s plays, or perhaps in any good play of the playwright’s time.  It reminds one of the prowess of words and whoever is fortunately good enough to execute them well.

Was reading short prose pieces  by Oscar Wilde and some of which were very interesting. There was one: To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

It made me reflect the myself in the fainting memory years back and the one who is writing this post. Like Oscar Wilde said “The Condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.”  I was , like anyone in the youth, full of unspeakable longings and aims and could not let it go if I let myself down. That was an age easily filled with gullible disappointment and non long-lasting agony.

So where am  I now if I have changed? I don’t seem to get easily surprised as surprise had not been a good thing. Nor do I seem to hold great longings if they are out of my control. I start to habituate myself to hoping for the best but meanwhile preparing for the worst. It seems life has changed me to be a cautious person who takes only calculated risks.

Why all these changes?

I haven’t written anything long as I had found it difficult to express myself. It seems lots of things were better unsaid. But I, just the same, have feel for the people and the surroundings around me. I was on the beach later in the night one day, the moon was so clear, the stars so bright, the sky so far and remote, and the water was sparkling in the moonlight, demuringly quiet and peaceful.  My mind was in tranquillity at that moment.

If I hadn’t been good to everyone, as least I have been honest.

秋天的风吹过原野
无尽的星空多灿烂
就在那分手的夜晚
你曾这样轻声告诉我
无论相距有多遥远
只要我轻声呼唤你
你会放下一切到我身边
我的姑娘
我的姑娘

我不知对你再说些什么
也不在乎它的真假
只是将你轻轻拥在我怀里
仰望着蓝色星空
只是将你轻轻拥在我怀里
倾听着风的声音
只是将你轻轻拥在我怀里
我的姑娘
我的姑娘