An ocean of truth

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton

The end?

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

(If anyone has the attribution for this please let me know)

I thought you were cheering

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit.

All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the unfortunate frogs they would never get out. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and simply gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and suffering and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs asked him, "Why did you continue jumping? Didn't you hear us?"

The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

The Endless Sea

Endless sea

If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people together to collect wood,
and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Cheshire Cat

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

"Cheshire Puss," she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider."Come, it's pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?""That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat."I don't much care where---" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," saidthe Cat. "--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Snowshoes

He remembers barely able to walk,
fitting on his first snowshoes
and falling,
falling into windswept snow,
struggling to stand.
Knowing this failure as his own
whiteness, he dreamed always dreamed of the day he would learn

(it all, to split ash, heat it over the fire
to make it workable, to weave
a spidery pattern of sinew and raw mooshide).

And the day came, no, it was night.
He doesn't remember exactly
when, because
it came gradually like the wearing
down of the season.
He stood, walked, and then even ran.
Twirled round and called out
to Basshkaakodin Giizis,
the freezing moon,
come dance.

Armand Garnet Ruffo, Grey Owl, page 170

The Trail

The Trail then is not merely a connecting link between widely distant points, it becomes an idea, a symbol of self-sacrifice and deathless determination, an ideal to be lived up to, a creed from which none may falter.

Grey Owl, Men of the Last Frontier