Epictetus 의 'The Art of Living' 중,

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible. (skip)

We always have a choice about the contents and character of our inner lives.

Desire and aversion, though powerful, are but habits. And we can train ourselves to have better habits. Restrain the habit of being repelled by all those things that aren't within your control, and focus instead on combating things within your power that are not good for you.

Do your best rein in your desire. For if you desire something that isn't within your own control, disappointment will surely follow;

Open your eyes: (skip)

Think about what delights you - the tools on which you depend, the people whom you cherish.

Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor what they seem to be. They are what they are.

It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble.

Therefore even death is no big deal in and of itself. It is our notion of death, our idea that it is terrible, that terrifies us. (skip)

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. (skip)

Create your own merit. (skip)

Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with wo is watching you.

There is a time and place for diversion and amusements, but you should never allow them to override your true purpose. (skip) Keep your attention directed at the ship. Getting distracted by trifles is the easiest thing in the world. Should the captain call, you must be ready to leave those distractions and come running, without even looking back.

Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always withing your control.

Sickness my challenge your body. But ar you merely your body? Lameness may impede your legs. But are you merely your legs. Your will is bigger than your legs.

Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. (skip)

On the occasion of an accidental event, don't just react in a haphazard fashion: (skip) Dig deeply. You possess strengths you might not realize you have. Find the right one. Use it. (skip)

Ass time goes by and you build on the habit of matching the appropriate inner resource to each incident, you will not tend to get carried away by life's appearances.

The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it, just as a traveler takes care of a room at an inn.

The surest sign of the highest life is serenity. (skip)

refrain from such common patterns of thinking as these: "If I don't work harder, I'll never earn a decent living, no one will recognize me, I'll be a nobody," or "If I don't criticize my employee, he'll take advantage of my good will." (skip)

When you call your child, be prepared that she may not respond to you, or if she does, she might not do what you want her to do.

Spiritual progress requires us to highlight what is essential and to disregard everything else as trivial pursuits unworthy of our attention. Moreover, it is actually a good thing to be thought to be foolish and simple with regard to matters that don't concern us. Don't be concerned with other people's impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.

Refrain from tryring to win other people's approval and admiration You are taking a higher road. (skip) Be on your guard against a false sense of self-importance. (skip)

While you are absorbed in one, you will neglect the other.

it is foolish to wish that an employee, relative, or friend be without fault. (skip)

Freedom isn't the right or ability to do whatever you please. (skip) By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.

Think of your life as if it were a banquet where you would behave graciously. (skip) There is no need to yearn, envy, and grab. You will get your rightful portion when it is your time.

Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your association with others. (skip)

We do a better service for ourselves and others by detaching and avoiding melodramatic reactions.

Still, if you find yourself in conversation with someone is depressed, hurt, or frustrated, show them kindness and give them a sympathetic ear; just don't allow yourself to be pulled down too.

Whenever you find yourself and in whatever circumstances, give an impeccable performance.

As you think, as you become. Avoid superstitiously investing events with power or meanings they don't have. Keep your head.

Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions. Vigilantly practice indifference to external conditions. Your happiness can only be found within. (skip)

Don't make the mistake of assuming that celebrities, public figures, political leaders, the wealthy, or people with great intellectual or artistic gifts are necessarily happy. To do so is to be bewildered by appearances and will only make you doubt yourself.

Instead of averting your eyes from the painful events of life, look at them squarely and contemplate them often. By facing the realities of death, infirmity, loss, and disappointment, you free yourself of illusions and false hopes and you avoid miserable, envious thoughts.

Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.

Many people who have progressively lowered their personal standards in an attempt to win social acceptance and life's comforts bitterly resent those of philosophical bent who refuse to compromise their spiritual ideals and who seek to better themselves. Never live your life in reaction to these diminished souls. Be compassionate toward them, and at the same time hold to what you know is good.

In trying to please other people, (skip) In doing so we lose our hold on our life's purpose.

Content yourself with being a lover of wisdom, a seeker of the truth. (skip)

Do not try to seem wise to others.

If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.

You will never earn the same rewards as others without employing the same methods and investment of time as they do. It is unreasonable to think we can earn rewards without being willing to pay their true price.

Treasure your mind, cherish your reason, hold to your purpose.

Before you proceed, step back and look back the big picture, lest you act rashly on raw impulse. Determine what happens first, consider what that leads to, and then act in accordance with that you've learned.

When we act without circumspection, we might begin a task with great enthusiasm; then, when unforeseen or unwanted consequences follow, we shamefully retreat and are filled with regret: " I would have done this; I could have done that ; I should have done it differently." (skip)

then do enter the Games - wholeheartedly. (skip)

Think things thought and fully commit! (skip)

A half-hearted spirit has no power.

You are not isolated entity, but a unique, irreplaceable part of the cosmos. Don't forget this. You are an essential  piece of the puzzle of humanity.

Our hopes and fears sway us, not events themselves.

Follow through on all your generous impulses. Do not question them, especially if a friend needs you;(skip)

Don't sit around speculating about the possible inconvenience, problems, or dangers. As long as you let your reason lead the way, you will be safe.

It is our duty to stand by our friends in their hour of need.

When we blather about trivial things, we ourselves become trivial, for our attention gets taken up with trivialities. You become what you give attention to.

Be of good humor and enjoy a good laugh when it is apt, but avoid the kind of unrestrained barroom laughter that easily degenerates into vulgarity or malevolence. Laugh with, but never laugh at.

Be selective about whom you take on as friends, colleagues, and neighbors. All of these people can affect your destiny.

Respect your body's needs.

Only the morally weak feel compelled to defend or explain themselves to others. Let the quality of your deeds speak on your behalf.

No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person. (skip)

remain rooted in your own purposes and ideals.

Inculcate habit of deliberation.

Your possession should be proportionate to the needs of your body, just as the shoe fit the foot.

Without moral training, we can be induced to excess.

She may feel compelled to put great effort and time into enhancing her outer beauty and distorting her natural self to please others. (skip)

Those who seek wisdom come to understand that even though the world may reward us for wrong or superficial reasons, such as our physical appearance, the family we come from, and so on, what really matters is who we are inside and who we are becoming.

If people reach conclusions based on false impressions, they are the ones hurt rather than you, because it is they who are misguided.

If you want to develop your ability to live simply, do it for yourself, do it quietly, and don't do it to impress others.

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. (skip)

Don't mind if others don't share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.

Put your principles into practice - now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren't child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you will be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better.

From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do - now.

Philosophy's main task is to respond to the soul's cry; (skip)

Philosophy calls us when we've reached the end of our rope. (skip)

The secret is not to get stuck there dithering or wringing your hands, but to move forward by resolving to heal yourself. Philosophy asks us to move into courage.

The wisest among us appreciate the natural limits of our knowledge and have the mettle to preserve their naïveté. (skip) There is no such things as conclusive, once-and-for-all knowledge. (skip)

Arrogance is the banal mask for cowardice; (skip)

You keep running around in the same familiar circles; you get caught in the same sticky webs. Nothing novel or festive ever happens. (skip)

Look and Listen.

To do anything well you must have the humility to bumble around a bit, to follow your nose, to get lost, to goof. Have the courage to try an undertaking and possibly do it poorly. Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.

The morally trained, rather than resenting or dodging their current life situations and duties, give thanks for them and fully immerse themselves in their duties to their family, friends, neighbors, and jobs. (skip)

The overvaluation of money, status, and competition poisons our personal relations.

By steady but patient commitment to removing unsound beliefs from our souls, we become increasingly adept at seeing through our flimsy fears, our bewilderment in love, and our lack of self control. We stop trying to look good to others. One day, we contentedly realize we've stopped playing to the crowd.

Be suspicious of convention.

Take charge of your own thinking.

Rouse yourself from the daze of unexamined habit. (skip)

Conventional thinking (skip) Its job is to preserve the status quo for overly self-defended individuals and institutions. (skip)

Awaken and be vigilant. Take stock of your habits to preserve your higher standards. (skip)

Don't listen to what people say. Watch what they do and evaluate the attendant consequences.

Books are the training weights of the mind.

Just as when a dead coal contacts a live one, either the first will extinguish the last, or the last kindle the first. Great is the danger; so be circumspect on entering into personal associations,

be as kind to yourself as possible. Do not measure yourself against others or even against your ideal self. Human betterment is a gradual, two-steps-forward, one-step-back effort.

Forgive others for their misdeeds over and over again. This gesture fosters inner ease.

Forgive yourself over and over and over again. Then try to do better next time.

consistent, even when it isn't convenient, comfortable, or easy. (skip)

It's so simple really: If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.

Goodness in and of itself is the practice and the reward.

Over and over again, we lose sight of what is important and what isn't. (skip)

We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not.

Clear thinking is not a bloodless art.

The latest fashionable sage or book or diet or belief doesn't move you in the direction of a flourishing life. You do. Renounce externals once and for all.

Practice self-sufficiency. (skip) Become your own soul's doctor.

Stay the course, in good weather and bad.

Take care not to casually discuss matters that are of great importance to you with people who are not important to you. Your affairs will become drained of preciousness. (skip)

Let you ideas and plans incubate before you parade them in front of the naysayers and trivializes.

Caretake this moment. (skip)

It is time really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself. (skip)

When you doors are shut and your room is dare, you are not alone. The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within. (skip)

As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life. No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time.

Give your best and always be kind.

- 말해져야 할 모든 것이 이미 그에 의해서 말해졌다.
AD 55년 로마시대에 태어난 철학자 에픽테토스, 그는 노예로 태어나 뛰어난 지적자질을 주인으로부터 인정받아 스토아 철학자로부터 교육받도록 로마에 보내진다. 그러나 철학자들의 세력성장에 위협을 느낀 황제에 의해 추방당해 그리스의 북서쪽 해변에 작은 철학학교를 세운다. 그의 제자중의 한 명이 로마제국의 황제며 명상을 집필한 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus라고 전해진다.

이 얇은 책을 읽으면서 삶을 살아가는 데 있어서 말하고 싶었던 모든 것, 행하고 싶었던 모든 것이 그에 의해 모두 말하여진 듯 싶다. 2000여년 전에 어떻게 우리가 삶에서 필요한 모든 것들을 그리 꿰뚫어보고 말할 수 있었는지 경이롭다. 동세대에서 외면받더라도 같은 정신을 시대를 초월해 만날 수 있는 듯하다. 특히 그가 철학의 역할이 영혼의 울음(외침)에 응답하고 고난과 슬픔, 일상의 사소한 역경속에서 보통의 인간을 도와주는 역할을 해야한다는 점에서 역대의 그 어떤 철학자보다 훌륭한 철학적 역할을 말하고 있다고 생각된다.

'마음의 평정'을 찾아서, 자신의 자리에서 훌륭한 역할을 수행하며, 외적 자극으로부터 자유로우며, 영혼의 부름을 찾아 용기를 내어 충실한 현재를 살아나가는 일. 다시 말하지만 삶에 있어서의 모든 자세가 그에 의해 다 말하여진 듯 하다. 다만 각 개인에게 있어 깨닫고 나아가는 일이 매 세대, 매 순간의 노력인 듯.

Colum McCann의 'Let the Great World Spin' 중

Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream. I was on the bottom bunk again, listening to his slumber verses. The flap of our childhood letter box opened. Opening the door to the spray of sea.

It was a look that suggested she was part of a mystery she wouldn't let go of.

Teach me, brother, how to live.

NOBODY FALLS HALFWAY.

She was putting the dead birds in little ziploc bags. White-throated sparrows mostly, some songbirds too. They migrated late at night, when the air currents were calmest. Dazzled by the building lights, they crashed into the glass, or flew endlessly around the towers until exhaustion got them, their natural nagivational abilities stunned. She handed him a feather from a black-throated warbler, and when he left the city again he brought it to the meadow and tacked that too just inside the cabin wall. Another reminder.
Everything had purpose, signal, meaning.

He was in a world of his own, Corrie.


- 긴장감과 미소를 지니고 읽을 수 있었던 책.
1974년 미국 뉴욕시 트윈타워에 줄타기를 시도한 실화를 묘사함으로서 시작하는 이 책은 몇 명의 인물들의 삶을 이야기함으로서 많은 것을 전해주려고 노력하고 있다. 특히 성직자로서 거리의 여성을 돌보는 Corrie의 삶과 죽음이 흥미롭다. 신과 인간의 사랑사이에의 갈등, 신분과 인종을 초월한 사람들의 공감과 우정, 베트남 전쟁이 가져다준 유족들의 고통, 형제애와 형제로서 한 인간을 이해하고자 하는 노력, 선행이 그 자체로 그 생에서 결실을 가져오지 못함에도 누군가의 마음에 뿌리내리는 점, 트윈 타워의 줄타기라는 생명을 건 무모한 일에의 도전 등, 다양한 메세지가 흐르고 있다. 그러나, 인물을 집요하게 끌고가서 그 인물이 그려가고자하는 것이 무엇인지에 대한 결론을 이끌어내지 못하는 것이 못내 아쉽다. 왜 트윈타워에 줄타기에 그토록 그가 도전해야했는지, Corrie가 그토록 자신의 일생을 거쳐 추구했던 것이 무엇인지, 왜 그렇게 할 수 밖에 없었는지... 좋은 소재, 좋은 구성, 좋은 인물, 좋은 메세지... 그러나 인물을 통해 끌어낼 수 있는 어떤 마음을 흔드는 무엇이 아쉬운... 피상적인 묘사 저편의 간절한 무언가가 이끌어내어질 수 있었다면...

T.S. Eliot 의 'The Waste Land and Other poems' 중

For I have known them all already, known them all-

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

(skip)

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

(skip)

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

<in 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'>

-Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,

Admire the monuments,

Discuss the late events,

Correct our watches by the public clocks.

Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

(skip)

'Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know

What life is, you who hold it in your hands';

<in 'Portrait of a Lady'>

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,

Being read to by a boy, waiting fo rain,

(skip)

                  Tenants of the house,

Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

<in 'Gerontion'>

THE WASTE LAND

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

(skip) 

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow 

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only 

There is shadow under this red rock,

(skip) 

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

<in 'I. The Burial of the Dead'>

Departed, have left no addresses.

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,

Sweet Thanes, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.

But at my back in a cold blast I hear

The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

(skip) 

The river sweats

Oil and tar

(skip) 

'On Margate Sands.

I can connect.

Nothing with nothing.

The broken fingernails of dirty hands.

My people humble people who expect

Nothing.'

<in 'III. The Fire Sermon'>

                  A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers.

< in 'IV. Death by Water'>

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens

After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying

Prison and palace and reverberation

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are no dying

With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water amongst the rock

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains 

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl

From doors of mudcracked houses

                                           If there were water

     And no rock

     If there were rock

     And also water

     And water

     A spring

     A pool amount the rock

     If there were the sound of water only

     Not the cicada

     And dry grass singing

     But sound of water over a rock

     Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees

     Drip dop drip drop drop drop drop

     But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

- But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are those hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains

Cracks and reforms and burst in the violet air

Falling towers

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria

Vennna London

Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight

And fiddled whisper music on those strings

And bats with baby faces in the violet light

Whistled, and beat their wings

And crawled head downward down a blackened wall

And upside down in air were towers 

Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.

It has no windows, and the door swings,

Dry bones can harm no one.

Only a cock stood on the rooftree

Co co rico co co rico

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust 

Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant.

The jungle crouched, humped in silence.

Then spoke the thunder

DA

Datta: what have we given?

My friend, blood shaking my heart

The awful daring of a moment's surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract 

By this, and this only, we have existed

Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

In our empty rooms

DA

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

DA

Damyata: The boat responded

Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar

The sea was calm, your heart would have responded

Gaily, when invited, beating obedient 

To controlling hands

                             I sat upon the shore

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least see my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina

Guando fiam uti chelidon - O swallow swallow 

Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie

(There he stepped back into the fire which refines,

When shall I be like the swallow?

The prince of Aquitaine, to the ruined tower.)

There fragments I have shored against my ruins 

Why then Ile fit you. Heronymo's mad againe.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

             Shantih   shantih   shantih

- T.S. Eliot 의 'The Waste Land'를 읽은 지는 한참이 지났으나, 생각으로 곱씹느라 이제서야 감상을 적는다. 4월은 잔인한 달이라고 시작하는 이 시는 시 자체보다는 그 서두가 더 유명해서 오히려 그 진정한 의미를 생각하게 되는 시간을 잃게 되는 것 같다.

물이 없는 대지에서의 물에 대한 갈망의 모든 형태, 물을 머금은 바람, 물에 대한 소리, 그 말라터진 갈증과 갈망... 그에 대해 주어지는 헛된 희망, 그에게 4월이 잔인한 것은 죽어없어질 것에 생명을 주기 때문이다.
채워지지 않을 갈증에 주어지지 않을 물, 그 당시의 삶은 그에게 그러했을 것 같다. 또 누군가에게는 지금의 삶이 그러할 것이다. 비가 오지 않는 것처럼 위로 따위는 없다. 가물은 하늘을 바라보는 희망도 갉혀먹힌 퀭한 시선과 헛된 의성어만 있을 뿐이다.
그러나, 그의 시는 그 자체로 너무도 아름답고 신비해서 여태껏 읽는 이의 마음을 애타게 사로잡는다. 

Katy Payne 의 'Silent Thunder' 중

The airplane throbbed, reminding me of the faint throbbing, or thrilling, or shuddering I'd felt at that moment. It had been like the feeling of thunder but there'd been no thunder. There had been no loud sound at all, just throbbing and then nothing.
Now a recollection from more than thirty years earlier joined the first. I was thirteen years old, and I was standing not in a zoo but in Sage Chapel at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. And I was hearing was not silence but enormous chords from pipe organ that was accompanying singers, and I was one of the singers. (skip) The organist pulled out the great stop and the air around me began to shudder and throb. The bass notes descended in a scale. The deeper they went, the slower the shuddering became. The pitch grew indistinct and muffled, yet the shuddering got stronger. I felt what I could not hear. My ears were approaching the lower limit of their ability to perceive vibrations as sound.
Is that what I was feeling as I sat beside the elephant cage? Sound too low for me to hear, yet so powerful it caused the air to throb? Were the elephants calling to each other in infrasound?
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wind, thunder, and ocean storms - gigantic motions of earth, air, fire, and water - these are the main sources of infrasound, sound below the range of human hearing, which travels huge distance through rock, water, and air. Among animals only the great fin and blue whales were known to make powerful infrasonic calls. No land animal approached the mass or power of these great mammals of the sea, but now I wondered: might elephants, too, be using infrasound in communication?

The field biologists in Africa had seen indications that elephants communicate with one another over inexplicably long distances.

The distance a sound travels depends on the medium it passes through, on the strength of sound, and on its frequency. High sounds travel in short waves that lose energy quickly, for they are deflected by grasses, trees, and other obstacles, and dissipated as heat. Low sounds travel in long wave that are less diminished by the same effects: the lower the sound, the less the loss. The strength of a low-frequency sound has a profound effect on its range. If you double the strength of a sound whose initial range is twenty meters, the range will increase to forty meters; if you double the strength of a sound whose initial range is two kilometers, the range will increase to four kilometers. So I saw that if we wanted to know the range of the elephants' communication, we'd have to measure the strength as well as the frequencies of their calls in the field.

The closest social unit is the "family", a group of a dozen or so related females and their offspring.

It represented, in a series of concentric circles, six levels of association of an adult female elephant. She stands, a little silhouette, in the central circle. The layer that wraps around her includes her claves. The layer that wraps around the family is the bond group. Of all the dimensions in an elephant society, this one intrigued most.

He was right, and this provided the final proof that elephants were the source of the infrasonic sounds we had been recording.

I felt touched when I saw Qasmira and her sister moving peacefully together, one of them missing a tusk and the other carrying it in her side.

He moves slowly between and within his favored drinking and feeding places, at his leisure joining and leaving families, and joining and leaving temporary aggregations of males, displaying his enormous strength but hurting nothing - he adjusts the placement of his feet to allow a tortoise to follow its course uninterrupted.

The older lifted his huge left ear and the younger moved under it. It became a sun umbrella, whose outer edge slowly settled onto the far side of the younger's head.

Other males not in musth, even males much bigger than he, hear his musth rumbling and give him wide berth.

elephants hear and respond to each other's loud calls from distances as great as four kilometers. (skip)
At dusk, a loud elephant's call might be heard by another 9.8 kilometers away; it would be heard by the listening elephants within three hundred square kilometers. At midday, the calling area might shrink to one-tenth that size.

for elephants, several kind of "we." There is the "we" in a family, whose members do everything together. There is the "we" in a bond group, whose member stay within close range of each other but maintain separate family behaviors - for example, the families of Crooked Tusk and Babe. Finally there is the "we" in a clan, whose members share the use of land but move about on it independently of each other.

Zaccheus was led by inner light, and nothing would put it out.

Like people, elephants live emphatically: the experiences of others become their own experiences, and there is no way to stop that. (skip) I do not believe that elephants have a way of ignoring the experiences of their friends and family.

But the world had failed in its relationship with him, too, for poverty is a failed relationship.

The accident was unavoidable, as we say - nobody's fault. Yet I knew that it was our fault,

14. PASSING BELLS (Best chapter I read. Memories for the elephants Katy Payne had known for her research. They are culled for Ivory and so-called population control.)

I don't know how they'd assessed the depth of water table. Bernie Hutchins, a Cornell engineer who has helped us a lot with the elephant study, suggested that elephants' low-frequency acoustic sensitivity might enable them to use a sonar system based on echoes from their footfalls. But on the day the new well area was opened, I saw no evidence that the elephants were doing anything but digging.

Late in the season, when things were exceedingly hot and dry, we also saw what may have been competition at the oxbow pools. (skip) We'd see three or four families waiting in the nearby forest - one day they waited in a line - while others were drinking and bathing.

In Shouna the two English words "god" and "nature" are both translated as "mwari."

In each well-less area we had found the water table deeper beneath the sand than an elephant trunk could reach. Somehow the elephants knew.

We count the wells and there are one thousand.

- Katy Payne의 'Silent Thunder'를 만난 것을 어떻게 설명할 수 있을까? 그것은 우연이기보다는 필연이었는지도... '코끼리의 귓속말'이라는 단편을 써 나가면서 찾아본 코끼리의 '말'에 대한 자료를 찾다가 만난  이 책에서 저자가 이타카에서 자랐고, 연구의 상당부분이 코넬에서 이루어졌기에 책 속에 등장하는 너무도 익숙한 지명과 이름들에 오히려 놀라게 되는 것.

코끼리에 대해서 점점 많은 것들을 알게 되면서 경이와 감탄. 그들의 점쟎은 행동과 서로에 대한 배려, 가족/친척/이웃과의 공동체로서 살아가는 육지에서 몸집이 가장 큰 무리 동물.
사람의 발자국이 아프리카 땅에 점점 늘어가면서 자신의 설 자리를 잃어버리고, 상아때문에 살육되고, 가족과 동료의 죽음을 경험하는 코끼리들. 우리는 어떤 말로서 용서를 구할 수 있을까? 코끼리는 감정적으로 다른 코끼리의 경험을 사람처럼 같이 느낀다고 한다. 한번 살육을 목격한 코끼리는 같은 코끼리가 아닌 것이다.
언니의 부러진 상아를 들어주고, 피가 섞이지 않은 어린 코끼리 머리에 쬐는 햇볕을 큰 귀로 가려주고, 구덩이에 빠진 모르는 어린 코끼리를 구해 자신의 무리에 받아들여 키워주고, 건조한 시기에 우물을 파서 가족과 친척, 다른 동물들과 나눠쓰고... 그들에게 경외심을 느낄 것은 너무도 많은데, 사람에게 코끼리는 상아와 경제적 값어치로 밖에 보이지 않는 것. 혹 다른 사람에게는 과학이라는 무기를 앞세워 그들의 삶의 패턴을 방해해고 혼란시키는 것. 코끼리가 대량살육된 날, '개체수가 더 적으니 모든 코끼리에 모니터를 부착할 수도 있겠다.' 라는 무자비하게 두려운, 그러나 너무나 쉽게 내뱉어질 수 있는 과학자의 생각...

'아는 만큼 사랑하게 된다.'라는 고대 그리스 철학자의 말이 다시금 생각나는 날이다. 이 책을 읽은 만큼 코끼리에 대해 더 사랑하게 된 것 같다. 그러나, 무엇이 바뀌기 위해서 무엇이 필요한 것인가를 다시금 절실히 생각하게 됨.