Hi M ...

Regarding the Desiderata - https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html (which I find wise in a number of ways ... )

Is this guidance for one's mind, or for one's bodymind (I ask myself)? How to conceive of the Desiderata meaning 'things desired' in Latin, I think (and perhaps regarding Dad's (GKM MD) interest too in William Osler and his "Aequanimitas"). And am curious why George L. Alexander MD might have thought this prose poem could be relevant for me? (Max Ehrmann, its author from Indiana, had spent time in Cambridge, MA, studying at Harvard - could this be relevant too culturally?) Advice even? (something George eschewed offering, because it wasn't logical to him to do so, philosophically +)

Some further thoughts about the Desiderata in the form of blog posts:

Wild pomegranate (Burchellia bubalina): Season’s Greetings 2019 ! * * * Happy New Year LETTER

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/12/wild-pomegranate-burchellia-bubalina.html?m=0

Mute Swan: Desiderata, ... very enjoyable ... Added this 'Desiderata' to the Philosophy, wiki, subject in its new, 'Select Poetry' subsection there (with this subsection planned in all WUaS Subjects) ... and in a nontheistically friendly way, as well ... :)

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2013/06/mute-swan-desiderata-very-enjoyable.html?m=0

And which I mention on my Yoga web page

http://www.scottmacleod.com/yoga.htm

and which you can find here too - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18757704.Scott_GK_MacLeod/blog?page=7 - to which my blog pipes through to.

Wisdom? ... appreciating too Eric Dodson's 10 indicators of wisdom, which you'll also find in these two blog posts -

Tea (Camellia sinensis): Bring Eric Dodson's 10 indicators of wisdom - one after the other - to the creation of a musical album (like 'upcoming' "Honey in the Bag" bagpipe album? :) (Do I hear these in YO YO MA playing Bach cello suites? A bit) * * * American Revolution - Boston Tea Party ship * * * Selling my 'Naked Harbin Ethnography' book in the Harbin Hot Springs' bookstore itself?

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/10/tea-camellia-sinensis-bring-eric.html?m=0

Grevillea: Re post-"Honey in the Bag" Scottish Small Pipes' album, & re >Boston Tea Party Berkeley-SF hippy 1960s-70s Britain and India USA 'freedom-in-revolution' vision< re Kathryn Tickell's Northumbrian Voices ... > beginnings of a 'Boston Tea Party Song' * * * Eric Dodson on 10 indicators of wisdom - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/10/andean-cock-of-rock-wisdom-education-by.html

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/10/grevillea-re-post-honey-in-bag-scottish.html?m=0

What do you think of Eric Dodson's wisdom thinking in - 'Wisdom and Education' - https://youtu.be/hBa7rGQXupU (2015) ?

L, Scott

(More about Osler here -

William Osler and Aequanimitas: an appraisal of his reactions to adversity

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1294989/pdf/jrsocmed00078-0040.pdf

December 1994

https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu:8443/osler/aequessay.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aequanimitas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Osler

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Medicine/education/hstrainingprogram/overview/)

And I just shared the following with Non-theist Quakers, Nontheist Friends' email lists -

Thanks, Trevor, Tim Regan, and Nontheist Friends' Networks, for this conference bibliography - https://nontheist-quakers.org.uk/2020/03/01/a-2020-nfn-conference-bibliography/.

You reminded me of my Friends' Dalton Letter's bibliography - http://scottmacleod.com/daltonbiblio.htm - which I started to write just around the time I was studying at the University of Edinburgh in 2003-2004 (and active in the Quaker Meeting there in central Edinburgh). Both this bibliography and Friends' Dalton Letter itself - http://scottmacleod.com/daltonletter.htm - explicitly touch on Nontheist Friends, but which letter is much about an envisioning of love and caring, and many other aspects of love.

And might you be open to adding this Nontheist Quakers' Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Quakers - to this bibliography?

Warm regards, Scott

(These are accessible from the 'love & links' link - http://scottmacleod.com/ ... http://scottmacleod.com/links.htm).

And here - http://scottmacleod.com/links.htm - are further thoughts about ...

Loving Bliss Letters

Friends' Dalton Letter :)
scottmacleod.com/daltonletter.htm

Loving Bliss and Practices to Elicit This
scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm

Loving Bliss as Friends
scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm

Eudaimonia is Flow and Bliss
scottmacleod.com/EudaimoniaFlow.htm

Guidelines for Practicing Loving Bliss vis-à-vis
Practicing a Musical Instrument
scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm

Loving Bliss (eliciting this neurophysiology)

at wiki World University & School

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology)

... https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology)

* *

Desiderata

GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

By Max Ehrmann © 1927
Original text

https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html

*
I find it interesting that a 1976 edition with this prose poem was entitled "The Desiderata of Happiness" :) ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata