Category Archives: Paul Valery

Feb 18 2 comments
fortune, Herbert Zbigniew, Luck, Paul Valery

>Wisdom, Luck and Preening

>Aren’t you lucky! It’s a ‘two-quotes-for-the-price-of-one’ luck napkin.

I put these two together on the same napkin because they are the carnal and intellectual sides of the same coin.


I like being older. I like having more wisdom than I used to. I like to think that I am a better person than I used to be. But I also know that that ‘wisdom’ is, in many cases, the stacking up of suitcases full of experiences. They are stacked in such a way that my ‘wisdom’ seems to have come from some far off place, but the reason I can see things as I do is because I have this great view from atop the suitcases.

I also know that that great view can make me think more of myself than I should. I can start to preen and strut that I have such a great view, that I have had such good luck. I start to think I made it all happen. That is the exact thought, if personified, would put the rocks in my path to make me trip.

Once again, humility is key in understanding luck and and living with good fortune.

Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily

Quotes by:
(top) Herbert Zbigniew, 1924-1998, Polish poet
(bottom) Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet


Nov 14 0 comments
Paul Valery, science

>Man Is Absurd

>This is an homage to all the scientists out there, including my incredible eldest daughter, Rebekah, a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience at George Mason University in Virginia.

The heart of science, from the beginning, when it was one and the same with religion, is to find out why things are the way there are and how to fix, change, improve, build upon, or just understand as much as possible.

To be a good scientist you have to withstand the appearance of absurdity in what you seek. Like the paleontologist looking for bones, having to answer questions from his mother or father about how he can make a living, or what good it will do to find some old bone anyway.

Or the cosmologist who has the engineer for a best friend who chides her for always having her head beyond the clouds and never producing much while she, on the other hand, has built a car or a bridge or something practical.

But it is the scientist who will discover where we came from, where we are going, who we are, how we can survive, what kills us, what saves us, and why it is so. It is the scientist who is searching and in the searching, absurd as it seems, is finding and becoming great in the process.

I love scientists. Pass this on to one you love, too!

Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily blog. You should subscribe. It will make your brain bigger and your day better! Better yet, you should indulge in a voluntary paid subscription. It will make your heart bigger too.

Quote by Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet and essayist


Sep 18 0 comments
artist, originality, Paul Valery

>Nothing is More Original

>The key is in the digestion. How does it become you? It becomes you by being eaten in your stomach by all sorts of nasty stuff that you don’t want to know about, mainly acids, enzymes and bacteria. Yum.

I had a conversation a while back with a friend who stated that no argument ever changed her mind. She went on to describe that she once was a conservative, fundamentalist christian; anti-homosexual, anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-everyone who didn’t believe what she believed.

She is no longer like that. She now believes that homosexuals are equal to anyone else and should have the exact same rights as everyone else. She believes that other religions have just as much ‘truth’ in them as does Christianity and she doesn’t see any need to try to change them. She has changed her own religion to Paganism. All the while she said that arguments don’t ever persuade her. And maybe that is true.

It made me think that maybe the argument is the meal on the plate before you eat it. The change in belief is after you have eaten and the arguments have had time to digest inside you and become part of you.

What do you think?

Drawing by Marty Coleman, The Napkin Dad
http://napkindad.blogspot.com
http://www.martycoleman.com

Quote by Paul Valery 1871-1945, French guy


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