Monday, February 12, 2007

The Moving Finger Blogs.........

I have an affinity with the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam. My grandfather quoted his verse all the time and spent hours trying to explain the meaning of them to me. I grew up remembering but not always understanding his 4-line or quatrain verse.

At my grandfathers funeral I read three of the verses from
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (or was it four?). I have to think hard now which ones they were as this was over 20 years ago. I have not revisited Omar for a long while. So, where has this blog posting come from? And where is it going to?

  • Firstly, we happened to watch a DVD the other night, The Keeper, about the life story of Omar Khayyam. It was something we picked up at our favourite pirated shop here in Dhaka for the usual $1.50. What an amazing 11th century scholar, mathematician and astronomer
  • Secondly, my family and I are moving back to the Middle East in August to take up new teaching positions at Qatar Academy (more about that later) so I have been ruminating on this life changing decision and preparing myself for the turmoil of moving
  • Thirdly, I was tagged by Miguel Guhlin a while back now with the request to write about how I go about developing posts for my blog! So Miguel, here goes a belated response.

Blogging allows me to reflect and evaluate and be 'erudite' if I want to or be 'trivial' if I want to.
I write for myself as well as for others. I like to reflect on what I have found online and also to share new ideas and findings with others. It helps to assimilate the new knowledge out there by writing about it and preserving 'research' in a blog post for future reference.

Blogging provides an opportunity to co
mmunicate with different people and to make connections that would not be possible in any other way.
I have 'met' many new friends through online interaction and often consider one or more of them as I write to my blog. What would "....." think about this? How would they respond and evaluate this issue? and so on.

Blogging gives me a chance to say my piece, make my peace and leave a piece of me for others to remember.

"Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the wise
To talk: one thing is certain, that life flies
One thing is certain, and the rest is lies;
The flower that once has blown for ever dies"


Blogging is all encompassing, all consuming, personal, public, joyous and unforgiving.

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it"


Blogging is an indulgence I enjoy, and life is too short to not do what you want sometimes!

"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend
Before we too into the dust descend
Dust into dust, and under dust to lie
Sans wind, sans song, sans singer and sans end"


Browse more of Omar Khayyam's verse

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1 comment:

Miguel Guhlin (@mGuhlin) said...

Thanks for sharing this poetry, not to mention your motivations for writing. I like the way you placed "peace" and "piece" in the same sentence.

Maybe we should start a meme on how poetry inspires our writing?
I'll wait for you,
Miguel Guhlin
Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://www.mguhlin.net