Topic: Lifelines
http://montalk.net/misc/95/research-notes
Check out the note called "Lifeline."
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After reading over the "Lifeline" note by montalk, I decided to begin to Lifeline thread.
A Lifeline is an external shock, from a positive source, that helps you return to balance. Don Juan spoke about these, in a roundabout way, in one of the Casteneda books. He liked to use poetry to give himself a boost.
This is a meaningful topic to me because when I was 18 it was partly the use of a Lifeline that kept me from committing suicide.
I still use it to give me a boost.
I was in a tailspin and the only thing that could bring me balance at that time was repeating William Ernst Henley's "Invictus" to myself. ("Invictus" is Latin for "unconquerable.")
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall me, unafraid
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.
--William Ernst Henley
but you can avoid its teeth.