Day 23: Burası Mountain View değildir

It would be interesting to see an anthropologist or a sociologist describe Silicon Valley. It seems so much like an extended, expanded college campus, or the bits of campus inhabited and animated by the COS community, anyway, except on steroids.

Day 21: ... to shining sea

"Stanford zengin bir okuldur. Stanford'a gitsin."

Day 20: Believe

Apparently, Nevada isn't all desert, although its towns do seem to be all (well, most visibly) casino.

Day 19: All over Idaho

Not quite the craters of the moon, but still quite other-worldly.

Day 18: Wow

 Time to break out the superlatives, I think they're actually justified here.

Day 17: The World's Biggest Collection of Geysers

Now that I think about it---Geneva's Jet d'Eau resembles exactly a geyser. As usual, Nature got there first.

Day 16: Fairy-tales on the prairie

This is the historic town of Deadwood, South Dakota. It sprung up in the late 19th century when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, miners flooded in from the East, from Europe, even from China (there was a Chinatown here---a Chinatown in the middle of the northern prairie!) and hustlers of all kinds flooded in after the miners, and quickly became the regional hub of the Black Hills. Today the miners are gone, and the hustlers have turned their attention to tourists. The saloons and speakeasies are still there, and Main Street is lined with casinos. Not so inappropriate for a former gold-mining town, really.

This is the Devil's Tower (or, in [some of] the native languages of the area, Bear Lodge.) It was created when seven sisters being pursued by bears jumped unto a low rock, and one of them prayed to the rock to help them escape. The rock started to rise; the bears clawed at it even as it continued to go higher and higher, until the sisters were pushed into the sky and became the Pleiades.
Fantastic stories both, if you ask me.

Day 15: Drugstores and Bison

 "The whole middle of the country is a mystery to me. I had forgotten that South Dakota existed until you mentioned it."

Day 14: Welcome to the West

 "To me (mentally), the Dakotas are about as remote as Tibet ... "

Day 13: Last city before California

And they're Twin Cities too!

One of them is even built around a waterfall (Minneapolis apparently sprung up around a bunch of flour mills which used the St Anthony Falls as a power source.)

Spending more time in the Twin Cities made me a little sad (again) that I chose not to make this my new home. But oh well, such is life ... 

Day 12: Mooooo

"In and of itself, Milwaukee is fairly boring ... it's having history that matters."

Day 11: Repeat, further up Lake Michigan

"It's so big you can't even see the other side!"

Ambivalent

is an imperfect word that doesn't describe how it's possible to have a variety of stances toward things ... a coarse simplification of the complex feelings toward others that toss and turn inside people, toward their native country, toward all that is.

Day 10: Visit friends, not monuments

Though somehow the only photos I have from that day are of the Bean.

At least now (after three visits, a course in radical political thought, and seeing Fallingwater) I think I understand the piece of art that is Cloud Gate better.

Day 9

The Sun is still there, but his alleged Brother with his palatial raised residence and glory and splendor and vast urban center are long gone ...

Also, somewhere else that could have been your new home, except you chose otherwise. Ah, well then.

Day 8

Wouldn't it be nice?

Also the wonderful things that can be done with a simple, unadorned catenary are really quite amazing.

Day 7: There are Ducks in the House

Not quite Venice, but still a very nice canal that Indianapolis has.

Good enough for this duck and her ducklings, anyway.

Day 6

Overheard at A2SF: "If you want to give your parents a heart attack, you tell them that you're quitting your day job after eight years to become a full-time musician ... If you want them to have a triple bypass, you tell them that your wife is also quitting her day job, to become a full-time writer."

In other news, President Obama waz here (maybe that's part of the reason for the long lunch line.)

Day -7.5: On the Most Solemn Occasion of Commencement

"Seriously?"

Day 5: Welcome to your new home

Whee ...

Day 4

 "This is a nice place. We plan to be here for the rest of our lives."

The caged bird sings / with a fearful trill

of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

Day 3: Well then

That's probably not true. A lot was happening in Pittsburgh in 1897.

Pittsburgh wasn't quite New York or Chicago, but it was still quite the city. It felt a lot like any of the cities around the Allegheny, but scaled up. And it still had a lot going for it, in terms of infrastructure and activity and goings-on and all, despite all that talk of decline. Guess that's all relative, really: the place has been declining, but from a high.

Day 2

Fallingwater blends beautifully---and, really I do mean beautifully---into its surroundings. But it seems to me a triumph of human design and engineering just as much as it is a statement about living in harmony with nature.

Also, meow purrr nyan. 

Day 1: From sea...

Day 0

Oh, Philly. Every time I visit you become a little more endearing, warts and all.

Day -1

Four years of quarterly visits make me a honorary New Yorker, right?

Day -2

My parents actually liked the area around Central Park enough to consider (in the loose sense of that verb) living in New York. Hm.

Day -7

May there be many more good dinners in the days to come.

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts. 

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace. 

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. 

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Biggest non-story of the year

“I’ve seen the accumulation of powers that Orwell could not have imagined, and not only that, but, in the hands of a relatively small number of people, this stunning capacity to track you,” he said.

And yet nobody even seems to notice anymore. Bah humbug. 

WOOHOOOOOOO

More inchoate thoughts

Some days I wake up with a fire burning inside ... that usually dissipates by the time I finish brushing my teeth. Oh well. Pity, some of that fire might actually motivate me to do something useful in life.
I'm going to write down some of the thoughts that stick for those 15-to-30 minute intervals, and maybe that part of me that mediates the daily hustle and lets it take over before breakfast is over will pick up on some of them and decide to do things with / about them.
It bothers me that the society we live in (broadly speaking) is so unfair. Maybe it's just the way the world is. But I don't believe it's the way the world must be.
There is not enough empathy in this world. There should be more. I should do something about it.
Elon Musk is doing awesome stuff. There're all these shops shuffling digits around in some form or another, and then there's Tesla and SpaceX. I should get on his level.
I should make it a life-goal to learn (and retain!) as many languages as possible.
Maybe you are more than your work. Maybe you can still be the change you want to see even if you don't choose to become a social activist or political organiser. 

Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,

ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,

ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,

ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.

-- Hippocrates

Disinvigorate

Just a unnecessarily convoluted way of saying "weaken", or different and a useful addition to the English language? Discuss.

Blei describes his profession

"There are many names for it ... this one [data mining] is bad. This one [statistics] sends people running, this one [data science] is good for finding a job, and this one [machine learning] people who've watched The Matrix are into."

You are what you are

You'll go where you go and carry your long and fragmented history with you wherever you go. And you will learn to be at peace with that and draw strength from it and see it as a source of support, not a weakness to be overcome. Others have done it. You have done it. You might change a little in the process, but why are you so afraid of that? Let those changes happen. You'll be fine.

Meh

I feel like the ground has been pulled out from underneath my feet all over again. It really, really sucks.
But I guess this was bound to happen at some point, since you don't fundamentally agree on where home is. You can't have everything you want all the time, and whatever they propose to do is perfectly within their rights. They have already done a lot for you. Time to stop depending on them and face up to reality. 

Thesis deadline minus 16 hours

"At some point in the next 16 hours I'll write my results chapter ... meaning I'll run my code, generate my results, and write about them."

Well, godspeed.

Lulz

All these e-mails---it feels like a denial-of-service attack against my brain.

Micah M. White 

Death has become him

Fun fact of the day: De'Ath is an actual surname.

Foundationlessness

Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même

(L'archéologie du savoir, Michel Foucault) 

This is not new

Not at all. At least you deal with it a little better now, I do think.

But the advice you gave yourself then holds every bit as true. And maybe I should add: be nimble. Learn to embrace your lightness. To count your blessings and treasure them, but also to let go. Because you will probably have to do a lot of that in the years to come ...

Protip #1566

While it is probably true that you should stop over-analysing the living daylight out of all your thoughts and impulses, those instincts in moderation also serve you pretty well in general. You should listen to them and stop freaking out.

Protip #5772

When in excessive doubt, you're probably just being a coward.

Meh

You aren't just free to dispose of your time as you want to.
Well, at the moment, I am. Maybe I won't be in the future. But that's simply not true now. Yes to some extent I'm being "childish" and "irresponsible". But really more than anything I'm hearing this. Have you never heard of the concept of a graduation trip? Jeez.
There is so little structure!
Yes, and I'm comfortable with that. You should be too. At the end of the day I have anchor points, and that's all that's needed.
You're wasting your time.
The time is mine to waste. Don't you worry about it. (Also I do actually plan to do stuff in between. I just haven't told you about it yet ... I guess I should.)
I guess at the end of the day it boils down to this: my life is not yours to direct. Don't try. I don't know how sharply I'll react if you push. 

Things I Realized Today

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a privately-held company. So is Koch Industries. So are many firearms manufacturers. Any number of the interesting firms lobbying Congress are privately-held and so don't (aren't oblige to) disclose very much information about themselves. At which point the study of money politics goes back squarely into the shadows of murk, estimation and guesswork. Or maybe there's a way to scrape all that information off the massive hairball of information that is the Internet. That would be one hell of a scrape though.

Yet Another Sign of Creeping Senioritis

Echo Chamber

Not in the sense of killing out competing views, but certainly in the sense of being potentially somewhat enclosed and amplifying anything that might come up into huge, unhealthy feedback loops. Probably something Not Terribly Good that you should try to change.  

Cryptic Reminder of the Day

The operative question at the moment is, how?

Beware.

Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about---and pays off on---what you can do with what you know (and it doesn't care how you learned it.) And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills---leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

Paz, esperanza y alegria

Absolutely the same thing as peace, hope, and joy. Except not. Except yes. Except not. Except ...

The Merry Month of February

For the next two weeks you will not worry about the future. The future will be a distant mirage and you will engage fully with the present, front and center. Until such time as good news comes crashing to shore and makes the mirage real again. Or, if not, till March arrives. 

Almost two years now but no less true

When more and more people around you start learning your language---just out of interest, or because they feel "they'll need it" in the future---; when whole provinces of neighboring countries start making it compulsory in schools ... you know something is afoot.
About time, you could almost hear so many say.
But even as we bask in the newly-(re?)found glow of attention, we should take care not to become arrogant and short-sighted once again. We should be careful not to repeat the mistakes of times past, and shrink back into a conceited cocoon. 

The Manchineel tree

Sounds like something in the Hunger Games arena.

 ... if you stay under its foliage while it's raining, the water will cause instant blistering wherever it touches you. ... You can't burn the Manchineel's wood because the smoke will cause temporary and even permanent blindness ... Ingestion [of the fruit] may produce severe gastroenteritis with bleeding, shock, bacterial superinfection, and the potential for airway compromise due to edema.

时势造英雄

Aitzaz Hasan is a brave man. I have nothing but respect for him.
More than once I've wished I could be like him ... but then I'm ashamed I could make such a perverse wish. For it would imply putting everyone else around in grave danger, and creating much disruption and grief ...

Probably the best riposte to L'Académie française

'English may be a shifty whore, but she's our shifty whore.' 

--Kory Stamper

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

A second chance! That’s the delusion.

“There never was to be but one. We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

ja aamun kiuru kirkkaudessa soittaa

So in the meantime, don’t just seek a life of happiness but keep yourself busy with your purpose and your neighbor’s purpose. Wake up every day like you mean it, sacrifice inconvenience for kindness; surround yourself with good people. Cry when you must, look for inspiration where you must. Never fall into any extreme; be truthful, be loyal, be a person of class no matter your status. Love more than you think is possible; forgive always. Be willing to sacrifice for what is good. And when you are tired, rest.

How Much a Truth, and How Much a Thin Fantasy

If human beings were angels, we would cheerfully focus on long-term goods. We would invest enthusiastically in schools and colleges for our own children and for everybody else’s children, so that they could become productive, engaged citizens in the future. We would happily support speculative research projects so that we could reap the benefits of discovery and innovation. We would gladly nurture humanistic inquiry because it provides an essential foundation for understanding what makes life meaningful and sustains the wellsprings of civil society. 

Indeed, we need not be angels to do these things. We would do them if we were perfectly rational investors, because economists like Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have shown convincingly that education and research are powerful drivers of economic prosperity. 

But we are not perfectly rational any more than we are angels. We live embodied in the present, sensitive to short-term pleasures and pains. Notions of the common good and promises about future returns feel abstract and feeble by comparison to the intensity of immediate experience.       

This bias seems especially fierce in America today. Our world features a non-stop news cycle, continuous political campaigns and an obsession with quarterly earnings statements. We demand that messaging be instant, and we talk in tweets. 

... 

In so doing, we risk squandering a national treasure. America’s colleges and universities are a beacon to the world. Parents around the globe dream of sending their children here, scholars dream of landing a place here, and nations dream of creating universities like America’s. Yet, here at home, we see a parade of reporters, politicians and pundits asking whether a college education is worth it — even though the economic evidence for the value of a college education is utterly overwhelming.

-- from Eisgruber's installation speech 

Meh

You know what? Being an adult is completely overrated. Conventionality can go stuff itself. And as long as you uphold your responsibilities, growing up can go stuff itself too. 

哭笑不得

PSI 300+ in Retrospect

It was so exciting when the PSI shot past 200, people demanded more PSI readings more often. And when the NEA didn't oblige there were promptly noises about how the government was dumbing down information for the people and treating them with kid gloves. Well that sounds plausible---the PAP's reputation on this front certainly doesn't help--- but then again maybe the government is honestly giving as much information as would be helpful to the average person. (Also: wait, what?)

It was also fairly entertaining to read an Indonesian minister complaining that Singapore was "behaving like a small child." Well, Mr. Laksono, you did sound very mature yourself. But then again you weren't alone, so oh well. At least there were some more rational voices out there (kind of.) Though now that the haze is over, how much of those voices and the very cogent and salient arguments that they made about longer-term underlying forces go heeded? 

It was also heartening to see people (my classmates, on Facebook oO ... probably also more people out there that I didn't hear about) organize things and try to come up solutions that didn't involve just complaining to the government and demanding action on their part. All in all it was a bit of a tempest in a teacup ... but baby steps are still important steps, in the context of this time and place. 

Less nostalgia more giant shopping malls

That seems to be the way things are going anyway. Is this kind of homogenisation inevitable? (Certainly it's not just happening where you are.) Is it really undesirable, and if so how? Discuss.

La la la

Okay. So I am fairly certain that whatever I put my mind to I can accomplish.
Now I should worry about whether I can actually put my mind to anything in the first place. 

Why do you travel?

To see how wide and wondrous the world is, but also how familiar it can be and how humanity has so much in common.
To experience the new and unfamiliar, to challenge my own comfortable assumptions, to make myself uncomfortable.
To learn the meaning of hospitality and friendship, to learn from and about those around me, in a deep, significant, and meaningful way.

Inchoate Thoughts

Let me speak frankly and bluntly. There are some things that have been bugging me every so often, and maybe if I put them out here in the open---so to speak---I will have a better grip on them and eventually figure out how to deal with them more productively.  Most of this is going to be not very coherent, possibly, and disjointed, and involves a probably inane amount of navel-gazing---so in case I have actually decided to hit "Publish" on this one and you are reading this, be warned that it may not be all that exciting a read. But anyway:
First, possibly foremost: I am terrified of the future. I have no idea what will happen after I graduate. It feels like jumping off a cliff with no inkling of what is ahead or below me, with no parachute, jet-pack, trampoline, or safety net of any kind to catch me. Sometimes I think I'll be fine as long as I keep working and look to see where I'm going. Other times (usually after I talk to the parents) it seems like the path I choose is going to be terribly difficult and that there is every chance that I will fail no matter how hard I try. I don't think that's true; or at least, I hope that's not true. Rationally I figure that it's probably not true, but there's always a nagging shadow of doubt somewhere in the corner of your mind that says, not quite "the naysayers are right", but "what if they're right? What will you do then? I think there's a small but significant chance that they are. Shouldn't you be doing something about this?" Does that sound like someone in denial? Maybe. Maybe it's really saying "the naysayers are right" but the rest of your mind is fighting that notion as hard as it can.
Which brings me to number two: I am perpetually haunted by a mix of extreme nihilism and existentialism, something which is tremendously liberating but also terribly draining. What is the meaning of life? There is none, is my usual answer. You can choose either to be a pawn of your evolutionary instincts, an instrument of biology; or you can define yourself by what you do. But---then it's probably a natural question to ask---what is the point of defining your own purpose in life when nobody else will share in it or affirm it. And thus "defining your own purpose", usually, devolves into defining yourself by your work, by what others think of it, and/or even by what others think of you. At which point you open yourself up to all kinds of stresses and upsetting things that should not disturb you so unduly. But then again maybe that's not all a bad thing. Or maybe you should just learn to be more at peace with these things which you now think of as stressors pure and simple. Maybe you just need to broaden your sense of purpose in life, but also to become more comfortable with failure, or perceived failure.
One reason why you're not is the persistent and recurring perception that you "cannot afford to fail" any more. Maybe that's true. More often it's not, and in these circumstances it does not help you at all to think that way (it's probably not very helpful even when it is true ... ) Sometimes you need to do some worrying, but afterwards you should throw the worrying out the window, set your mind at peace, and just go. If you fail---when you fail---then you'll have time to figure things out and try and solve the problem. In the meantime that worrying is preventing you from doing as much as you could, and causing you unnecessary stress.
These thoughts usually intensify---and present themselves in the form of mild panic attacks---around the bits of free time during summer, and/or after long calls with your parents. They usually go away during the semester, more than anything because they get buried by immense amounts of work and busyness. That is unpleasant in its own sort of way, but also nice, in a way. But it also means that you aren't actually addressing these questions and concerns, but only deferring them to a later time, when they will present themselves even more urgently.
I know my parents raise these issues out of genuine concern. Sometimes I question whether that concern is as much for their own future financial health as for me, but perhaps these questions are best left unasked and unaddressed. In any case never have I doubted that they do care for me, and they have really been very supportive if you think about it. Still ... zaten ... however reasonable I find their proposals, some part of me just categorically refuses to adopt them. Yes, they have more experience; but not all of that experience necessarily applies to your world today. Maybe ... maybe you just need to accept that, and its consequences, whole-heartedly, and work on that basis. At the moment it's more like you are in two minds: on the one hand you disagree with what your parents say and consequently part of your mind refuses to hear anything of it; on the other hand you fundamentally respect what your parents have to say and that feeds the voice in your mind that continually questions your own decisions and plans. Maybe what you should do is to take what you hear from your parents as good but not infallible advice, and weigh it objectively with and against everything else you see and hear from everyone else. Stop taking it as dogma that you must accept or fight, and start thinking of it as advice that you receive and weigh.
Talking to the parents also feels draining because they never quite talk to me as an adult. With Mom the nagging never stops; with Dad it takes the form of never quite agreeing with my opinions or even agreeing to disagree. It's annoying, frankly. But more and more I think of these things as just things I have to work around. It's not that they have malicious intentions or anything ... just that parents will always be parents ... 

Exactly what you said about eating tacos

One day I will make my compromises with reality.

Serinkanlı

"But to remain indifferent is unjustifiable"
"甚至有些时候，沉默成了对悲剧事件最好的回应。"
Interesting contrast.

Boom

Is it bad that my first thought upon reading the details of the Boston explosions was "it doesn't look that bad"? But in any case. To those who lost life or limb, or loved ones, my thoughts are with you. 

Translation Exercise #FFFFE7

Google Translate takes "hayirli" to "somebody help please".
(It translates hayırlı with the dotless ı's correctly though.)

Translation Exercise #43

Karpuz yiyesim geldi.
我～要～吃～西～瓜～！

So many questions to which there is no answer (Response to Tufte)

But yet we must answer them, no? Maybe not conclusively or definitely, but we must have some sort of answer so that we don't stand still or grope around blind.
Surely you know this, because you have been a social scientist before, because you are clearly more than just an armchair academic.
Or maybe you were just trying to say that this sort of ineffability, so to speak, will always be present, all the more acutely so in the social sciences; that we should always be aware of this and that this should be spur us on to be more rigorous, more exacting, and more creative in our methods and thinking ...

[Not enough Chinese to translate :/]

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West"

Φιλαδέλφεια

Remember how utterly dead Trenton, or at least the neighborhood where the Social Security office, was? Boarded up houses, no commerce except for discount corner shops and liquor stores, and hardly anyone on the streets; it seemed like the buildings were there not to be lived in and inhabited, but just to provide a picturesque background for all the cars zooming past on their way to other, more interesting places.

A lot of Philadelphia felt the same, somehow. Maybe not so much University City, which was well and alive alright. But so much of Center City even, the blocks near Front Street and Penn's Landing, felt devoid of life.  Even around City Hall, where there were crowds milling around, it felt like the people were only passing through, that there was nothing in this most central part of the city to hold their attention. There is a huge transit concourse running down part of the length of Market Street, I gather; but it doesn't have nearly as many shops or restaurants or buskers or activity as it could have: most of it seemed to be just huge, hulking empty walkways. The roaring of cars was a much more evident sign of human activity than anything human: there were major interstates placed prominently by the rivers.

The whole city gave off this air of neglect and decay. Sure the bits around Independence Hall were nice and 30th Street Station was very stately indeed, but beyond that it didn't feel like very much of a city at all.

Can a city like this, one which doesn't quite bring together people and ideas and communities through interaction and discourse and common experience, even claim to be a city? Surely a city is more than just two million people clumped into a relatively tight space but not really living together in any meaningful sense.

Then again really some of that interaction and discourse does happen, even if it's not as common or fluent as one might wish it to be. And there're also other aspects to it as well I guess. Stadtluft macht frei. Even if a city isn't quite serving some of the functions one might ideally want it to, maybe it can still achieve other things.

I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool urban resident, but now after two-and-a-half years in Princeton I've become rather more indifferent it seems. Then again university towns like this one share some significant similarities with large cities: there's always something going on, especially if you're a student there, and the large numbers of diverse and transient denizens (i.e. students) re-create to some extent the open, dynamic social environment of large metropolitan cities. So maybe I am still an incurable city-lubber, just that I've managed to find the city in Princeton ...

The Hospital, ca. 1750

Seriously ill poor people went to the hospital to die. The beds were arranged so that patients could see the altar and join in the celebration of daily mass.
The nuns administered medicines made from herbs gathered in the wild or cultivated in the convent gardens to treat patients or relieve their suffering in their last days.

from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa

Call it Douglas Adamism

"Life is meaningless. Let's go for lunch." Or, the guy with the beret.

Probably the most accurate description of my life philosophy. 

Short answer: No

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 8:46 PM, Jason Steinberg <jssix@princeton.edu> wrote:

Combine Matt and Jane's responses and you get me!

On 1/9/13 2:37 PM, Jane Wang wrote:

I'm not on campus, but hope you guys have fun studying and good luck on the take-home! 

- Jane

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 7:50 PM, Matt Superdock <msuperdo@princeton.edu> wrote:

I already took it, but I would have loved to study with you guys!

Matt

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Alan Chang <acsix@princeton.edu> wrote:

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a nice break!

Are any of you back? If so, do you want to study together for the combinatorics final? (Assuming that you haven't done it already!)

It is what it is

Es ist Unsinn
sagt die Vernunft
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe 

Es ist Unglück
sagt die Berechnung
Es ist nichts als Schmerz
sagt die Angst
Es ist aussichtslos
sagt die Einsicht
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe 

Es ist lächerlich
sagt der Stolz
Es ist leichtsinnig
sagt die Vorsicht
Es ist unmöglich
sagt die Erfahrung
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe

---Erich Fried