Sylvia Plath

 

She published her first poem at 8. At 30, she published The Bell Jar—a masterpiece about a young woman's mental breakdown. One month later, Sylvia Plath was dead.

In 1940, Sylvia Plath was eight years old when her father Otto died from complications of diabetes.

She wouldn't speak about him much after that. But twenty-two years later, she would write one of the most searing poems in the English language about fathers, loss, and rage:

"Daddy, I have had to kill you. / You died before I had time—"

That poem, "Daddy," became one of her most famous works. It was published after her death.

Sylvia showed early signs of exceptional talent. At eight—the same year her father died—she published her first poem in the Boston Herald. By the time she reached Smith College, she was already publishing in major magazines.

On the surface, Sylvia's life looked like success. She attended Smith on scholarship. She won a guest editorship at Mademoiselle magazine in New York. She was brilliant, driven, beautiful, accomplished.

But underneath, she was struggling.

In 1953, at age 20, Sylvia attempted suicide and was hospitalized. She underwent electroconvulsive therapy. She survived, but the experience marked her profoundly—it would later become the basis for The Bell Jar.

She returned to Smith, graduated summa cum laude, won a Fulbright to Cambridge. In 1956, she met fellow poet Ted Hughes at a party. They married four months later.

For a while, it seemed like Sylvia had found stability. She and Ted wrote together, supported each other's work, moved between England and America. She gave birth to two children: Frieda in 1960, Nicholas in 1962.

But in 1961, Sylvia suffered a miscarriage. The loss devastated her, and she poured her grief into poetry—including "Parliament Hill Fields," which wrestles with the aftermath of losing a pregnancy.

Her marriage to Ted Hughes became increasingly strained. By 1962, Hughes was having an affair. The couple separated.

Sylvia moved with her two young children into a London flat. It was autumn 1962, one of the coldest winters on record in England. She had two babies, a failing marriage, limited money, and the crushing weight of depression.

And then she wrote.

In the months between October 1962 and February 1963, Sylvia Plath produced some of the most extraordinary poetry ever written in English. She wrote at a furious pace—waking at 4 AM before her children woke, writing poem after poem in white-hot bursts of creativity.

"Lady Lazarus." "Ariel." "Edge." "Daddy." "Fever 103°."

These weren't gentle poems. They were raw, angry, brilliant, terrifying. They confronted death, identity, rage, motherhood, betrayal. They stripped away every polite convention and exposed the jagged edges of a brilliant mind in crisis.

"Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well."

Those lines from "Lady Lazarus" are haunting in retrospect. The poem, written in October 1962, confronts suicide with chilling directness—describing death and resurrection, the speaker rising from the ashes again and again.

Meanwhile, Sylvia was also preparing The Bell Jar for publication.

The novel, published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in January 1963, tells the story of Esther Greenwood—a talented young woman who wins a magazine internship in New York, only to spiral into depression and attempt suicide.

It was Sylvia's story, thinly veiled. The guest editorship at Mademoiselle. The mental breakdown. The electroconvulsive therapy. The slow, agonizing recovery.

The Bell Jar is a masterpiece—darkly funny, brutally honest, devastating. It captures what it feels like to be trapped inside depression, to watch yourself sink while everyone around you expects brilliance.

"To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream."

One month after The Bell Jar was published, on February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath died by suicide. She was 30 years old.

She left behind two small children, a devastated family, an estranged husband, and a body of work that would secure her place as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.

Most of her best-known poems—"Daddy," "Lady Lazarus," "Ariel"—were published posthumously. The world didn't fully grasp the magnitude of her final creative burst until after she was gone.

Sylvia Plath's legacy is complicated. Her death overshadows her work for many readers. Her relationship with Ted Hughes remains controversial—he edited her journals after her death, and some believe he destroyed her last journal, the one covering the final months of her life.

But what's undeniable is the power of her work.

Sylvia wrote about depression, rage, motherhood, identity, and death with unflinching honesty. She refused to make her pain pretty or palatable. She wrote with razor-sharp precision about the darkest corners of human experience.

The Bell Jar has never gone out of print. It's required reading in schools worldwide. Generations of readers have found their own experiences reflected in Esther Greenwood's descent and struggle for survival.

Her poetry remains visceral, immediate, devastating. Reading "Daddy" or "Lady Lazarus" decades later still feels like touching a live wire.

Sylvia Plath published her first poem at eight years old, the same year her father died.

At thirty, she published The Bell Jar—a masterpiece about a young woman's battle with mental illness.

One month later, in the freezing London winter, she died.

She left behind two children under the age of three and some of the most powerful poetry ever written in English.

We'll never know what else Sylvia Plath might have created. What poems she would have written at forty, fifty, sixty. What else she had to say.

What we have is brilliant and heartbreaking: the work of a prodigy who fought depression from childhood, who transformed her pain into art, who wrote with searing honesty about experiences many still struggle to articulate.

Sylvia Plath didn't just write about mental illness and suffering. She wrote about rage, ambition, motherhood, identity, the crushing weight of expectations, the struggle to be seen as fully human.

She wrote with a voice that refused to be silenced—even when everything in her world was telling her to be quiet, be good, be grateful, be happy.

She published her first poem at 8. Her masterpiece at 30. And one month later, she was gone.

But her words remain—sharp, honest, unforgettable.

{PS}

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Zelda Fitzgerald

 

He plagiarized her diaries for The Great Gatsby. He published her stories under his name. When she wrote her own novel, he tried to stop her. She died locked in a room during a hospital fire.

Montgomery, Alabama, July 24, 1900. Zelda Sayre was born into Southern aristocracy.

Her father, Anthony Dickinson Sayre, was a lawyer who served in the Alabama state legislature, as state senator, city judge, and ultimately as Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Her great-uncle and grandfather had both served in the U.S. Senate.

Zelda grew up privileged, beautiful, rebellious, and bored.

In high school, she smoked, drank, snuck out to meet boys, and cultivated a reputation for being wild, fearless, and attention-seeking.

She was intelligent, creative, and desperate to escape the confines of respectable Southern womanhood.

In 1918, at age 18, Zelda met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in Montgomery. He was 22, a young army officer stationed nearby.

Scott was immediately obsessed. Zelda was beautiful—blonde bob, sharp wit, fearless personality. She represented everything glamorous and modern.

They began a courtship. Scott proposed. Zelda accepted—but on the condition that he become successful first. She wasn't going to marry a poor nobody.

Scott moved to New York to make his fortune. In 1920, his first novel This Side of Paradise was published. It was a massive success.

Zelda agreed to marry him. They wed on April 3, 1920, in New York.

She was 19 years old. He was 23.

They became the most famous couple of the Jazz Age—beautiful, talented, wild, drunk, constantly in the newspapers.

Zelda jumped into fountains in her evening gown. She rode on top of taxi cabs. She danced on tables. She embodied the flapper—the modern, liberated, rebellious 1920s woman.

F. Scott called her "the first American flapper." The media agreed.

But behind the glamorous public image, the marriage was toxic from the start.

Both drank heavily. Both were unfaithful. Scott was jealous and controlling. Zelda was erratic and increasingly unhappy.

And Scott was stealing her words.

THE PLAGIARISM

F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing was brilliant. But much of it came directly from Zelda.

He copied passages from her letters and diaries—word for word—and used them in his novels.

In This Side of Paradise (1920), he lifted entire sections from Zelda's letters to him.

In The Beautiful and Damned (1922), the character Gloria Gilbert is based on Zelda, with dialogue taken directly from Zelda's own words.

Most famously, The Great Gatsby (1925) draws heavily on Zelda's observations, personality, and specific phrases.

Zelda's line: "I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

That appears in The Great Gatsby as Daisy Buchanan's famous line. It was Zelda's.

Scott didn't just draw "inspiration" from Zelda. He took her words, her insights, her observations about their life, and published them as his own.

Zelda wrote in her diary. Scott read it, copied passages, and used them in his novels.

When confronted, Scott's response was essentially: we're married, what's yours is mine.

HER OWN WRITING—PUBLISHED UNDER HIS NAME

Zelda wrote short stories. She was a talented writer with her own voice.

But magazines paid more for stories "by F. Scott Fitzgerald" than for stories by unknown authors.

So Scott published Zelda's stories under his own name, or as co-authored, to get higher fees.

Stories Zelda wrote appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and other magazines—credited to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The money went to their household, but the credit—the literary reputation—went to Scott.

Zelda received neither recognition nor control over her own creative output.

HER NOVEL—AND SCOTT'S ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS IT

In 1932, while institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital, Zelda wrote a novel: Save Me the Waltz.

It was semi-autobiographical, drawing on her life with Scott—their marriage, his drinking, her ballet training, their time in Paris.

When Scott found out, he was furious.

He wrote to Zelda's doctors, demanding they stop her from writing about "his" material. He argued that their marriage, their shared experiences, belonged to him as source material for his novels.

He was working on Tender is the Night (1934), which also drew on their marriage and Zelda's mental illness.

Scott insisted Zelda revise Save Me the Waltz to remove content he claimed as "his." He controlled the editing process while she was institutionalized and unable to fight back effectively.

Save Me the Waltz was published in 1932 to mixed reviews and poor sales.

It was Zelda's only published novel.

THE MENTAL ILLNESS

Throughout the 1920s, Zelda's behavior became increasingly erratic.

She drank heavily. She had affairs (including, reportedly, with French aviator Edouard Jozan in 1924, which nearly ended the marriage). She attempted suicide.

In 1930, Zelda suffered her first major breakdown. She was hospitalized in Switzerland.

For the rest of her life—18 years—Zelda was in and out of psychiatric institutions.

Her diagnoses varied: schizophrenia (most common), bipolar disorder, "hysteria."

Modern scholars debate whether Zelda was genuinely mentally ill or whether her institutionalizations were partly Scott using psychiatry to control an inconvenient, creative, rebellious wife.

Some of her "symptoms":

Wanting to pursue her own career as a dancer and writer

Resenting Scott's use of her words and experiences in his books

Drinking, affairs (which Scott also did, but wasn't institutionalized for)

Erratic behavior (which could be mental illness, or alcoholism, or abuse, or all three)

Treatments she endured:

Long-term institutionalization

Sedation

Electroshock therapy

Isolation

Whether Zelda had schizophrenia or whether she was a creative, alcoholic woman trapped in a destructive marriage and controlled through psychiatry—or both—remains debated.

What's clear: institutionalization destroyed her ability to have an independent life or career.

SCOTT'S DEATH AND ZELDA'S FINAL YEARS

F. Scott Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940, at age 44, from a heart attack (likely related to alcoholism).

By then, he and Zelda had been estranged for years. She was institutionalized; he was in Hollywood trying to revive his career.

They never divorced. But they were no longer a couple.

After Scott's death, Zelda continued living intermittently at Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.

She worked on a second novel (never completed). She painted. She wrote letters.

She was in and out of the hospital—sometimes as an outpatient living nearby, sometimes institutionalized.

On the night of March 10, 1948, a fire started in Highland Hospital's kitchen.

The fire spread rapidly through the building via the dumbwaiter shaft.

Nine women died, including Zelda.

She was 47 years old.

Accounts of her death vary:

Some say she was locked in a room awaiting electroshock therapy

Others say she was sedated and unable to escape

Some say she was in a locked ward on an upper floor

What's certain: she couldn't escape. The building burned. She died.

Zelda's body was identified by her dental records. She was buried next to Scott in Rockville, Maryland.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

In 1986, Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto needed a name for the princess in his new Nintendo fantasy game.

He'd heard of Zelda Fitzgerald: "She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name."

So he named the character Princess Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda became one of the most successful video game franchises in history.

Millions of people worldwide know the name "Zelda"—but most have no idea who Zelda Fitzgerald was.

THE LEGACY

Zelda Fitzgerald is remembered today as:

F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife

The original flapper

A tragic figure who went mad

A Jazz Age icon

But she should be remembered as:

A writer whose work was plagiarized by her husband

A talented author whose stories were published under her husband's name

An artist who tried to have her own career but was controlled and institutionalized

A woman whose novel was suppressed by her husband claiming ownership of their shared life

The Great Gatsby is considered one of the greatest American novels.

Many of its most famous lines came from Zelda's letters and diaries.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is celebrated as a literary genius.

Much of his genius came from stealing his wife's words.

Zelda wrote her own stories. Scott published them under his name for more money.

Zelda wrote a novel. Scott tried to stop her, claiming their marriage was "his" material.

Zelda wanted to be a dancer and writer. Scott had her institutionalized.

She died at 47, locked in a burning psychiatric hospital.

THE COMPLICATED TRUTH

Was Zelda mentally ill? Possibly. Her behavior was erratic, her breakdowns were real, and some form of mental illness seems likely.

Was she also a victim of her husband's control, plagiarism, and use of psychiatry as a tool of suppression? Also yes.

Both things can be true.

Zelda was:

Talented (writer, dancer, artist)

Troubled (alcoholism, erratic behavior, mental health struggles)

Trapped (in a toxic marriage, in institutions, in an era with few options for women)

Plagiarized (her words stolen and published as Scott's)

Controlled (institutionalized, prevented from publishing freely)

She exercised agency when she could—writing, painting, dancing, having affairs, living wildly.

But she was also systematically denied credit for her own creative work and ultimately lost her freedom entirely.

F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940, remembered as a literary genius.

Zelda Fitzgerald died in 1948, in a locked room in a burning psychiatric hospital.

The world remembers him.

She's remembered as "his wife" or "the crazy flapper."

Remember: Zelda Fitzgerald.

She wrote stories published under her husband's name.

She wrote a novel her husband tried to suppress.

Her words appear in The Great Gatsby—without credit.

She wanted her own career. She was institutionalized instead.

She died at 47, locked in a burning hospital.

And millions know her name only because of a video game.

She deserved better.

{PS}

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Human Angels

 

The smell of antiseptic in a sterile hospital room has a weight that can crush a man’s ribs. Christopher Reeve lay anchored to a bed by the sudden, brutal gravity of a broken neck, feeling the world shrink to the size of a ventilator tube. He was paralyzed.  

Then, the door swung open with a violent, joyful friction.

A man in a surgical scrub suit burst into the room, snapping latex gloves and barking in a high-pitched, manic Russian accent. He claimed to be a proctologist. Reeve, who had been contemplating the end of his own existence, felt a strange, forgotten vibration deep in his diaphragm. 

He laughed. For the first time since the accident that had severed his spine, the man who had played Superman realized that he still possessed a soul.

The figure behind the mask was Robin Williams.

This wasn't a performance for the cameras or a bit for a late-night talk show; it was a rescue mission fueled by a friendship that had been forged decades earlier in the dusty rehearsal halls of Juilliard. 

Back in 1973, they were the only two students selected for the Advanced Program, a pair of opposites who became each other's equilibrium. Reeve was the statuesque, classical powerhouse with a voice like polished mahogany. 

Williams was the frantic, kaleidoscopic genius who seemed to be leaking light from every pore.

They were a study in contrast. One was marble, the other mercury. Yet, they shared a secret language that transcended their differing temperaments. 

While the world saw a tragedy in Reeve’s paralysis, Williams saw his brother trapped in a tower and resolved to climb it every single day. Their bond became a testament to the idea that friendship is not just a social contract, but a survival strategy.

The narrative of their lives often feels like a scripted irony—the strongest man in the world rendered immobile, and the funniest man in the world fighting a private, silent darkness. 

But in the years following the accident, their connection deepened into something sacred and tangible. Williams didn't just offer jokes; he offered his presence as a bulwark against the despair that threatens to swallow a person when their body becomes a cage. 

He became a primary benefactor for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, using his celebrity as a megaphone to demand progress in spinal cord research.

He was the wind beneath the broken cape. When Reeve worried about the mounting medical bills and the logistical nightmare of his new reality, Williams stepped in with a quiet, fierce generosity that he never publicized. 

He made sure the family was cared for, not out of pity, but out of a profound sense of loyalty that dated back to their days sharing cheap meals in New York City. They had promised to look out for each other when they had nothing, and they kept that promise when they had everything to lose.

Their friendship suggests that the most powerful thing one human can do for another is to bear witness to their pain without flinching. Williams never looked at Reeve with the "sad eyes" of the public; he looked at him as the same formidable actor and friend he had always been. 

This recognition was a lifeline. It allowed Reeve to transition from a victim of circumstance to a champion for others, turning his chair into a throne of advocacy.

When Reeve passed away in 2004, a piece of Williams seemed to dim, a shadow falling over the manic energy that had defined him. The world lost a hero, but Robin lost his mirror. 

At the funeral, Williams was desperate, openly weeping as he stood as an unwavering witness to the love he had lost. The man who could summon laughter with a glance was seen quietly wrestling with a sorrow that no joke could cure—the profound, aching silence of his best friend's absence.

The tragedy of their ending—Williams’ own struggle and eventual passing years later—paints a moving  picture of two stars that burned brightly because they shared the same orbit. 

Love, in its purest form, can overcome even the hardest parts of life. Even when the body fails, the memory of a shared laugh can last through time.

We Are Human Angels

Authors

Awakening the Human Spirit

We are the authors of 'We Are Human Angels,' the book that has spread a new vision of the human experience and has been spontaneously translated into 14 languages by readers.

We hope our writing sparks something in you!

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John Steinback

 

His name was John Steinbeck. He believed something many people in power did not want to hear. Listening to poor and ignored people can be dangerous for those who benefit from silence.

In 1939, in Salinas, California, Steinbeck’s hometown, a crowd gathered downtown. They brought copies of a new novel, not to read it, but to burn it in public.

The book was The Grapes of Wrath, published on April 14, 1939. The author was Steinbeck, a local man who many felt had betrayed them.

They piled the books together and set them on fire. As the pages burned, they believed they were protecting their town. Instead, they showed exactly why the book mattered.

In the mid 1930s, California’s farm valleys were filled with desperate families called Okies. They had fled the Dust Bowl, hoping to find work in California. What they found was hunger, low pay, and abuse.

Families lived in dirty camps. They picked fruit for wages too small to live on. The children went hungry. Landowners used force to stop workers from organizing.

Many Americans did not know about this. Others did not care. Some believed the migrants deserved their suffering.

Steinbeck wanted to know the truth.

He did not study these people from far away. He lived with them. He wore worn clothes, stayed in their camps, worked beside them, and listened to their stories.

He saw children weakened by hunger. He saw families living in shocking conditions. He saw workers cheated out of pay and beaten when they spoke up.

He wrote down everything he saw.

The novel followed the Joad family, farmers pushed off their land in Oklahoma by drought and banks. They traveled to California looking for work and found a system built to use their misery.

The story was fiction, but it was based on real life. Steinbeck had seen it himself. The book was honest and painful. It angered people who wanted poverty to stay hidden.

When the book came out in 1939, the reaction was fast and harsh. Powerful farm groups in California called it lies. Landowners said it was propaganda. Politicians demanded it be banned.

In Kern County, officials removed it from libraries and schools that same year. In Salinas, people burned it in public. The book was banned and challenged in many places. Steinbeck received threats. His family was harassed. But something else happened at the same time.

The book sold more than 400,000 copies in its first year. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. It forced Americans to see a reality many leaders wanted ignored.

Eleanor Roosevelt defended it. Groups that helped migrant workers shared it widely. The country could not look away.

And the FBI opened a file on Steinbeck.

For many years, the FBI collected information on Steinbeck. His writing kept appearing in fights about labor, poverty, and loyalty to America.

The released files are more than one hundred pages long. They never proved he was a member of the Communist Party. He was not. He was a writer who believed ordinary people mattered. He wrote what he saw, even when it made others uncomfortable.

That alone made him a target.

Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas. His father worked as a county treasurer. His mother was a schoolteacher. The family lived a stable middle-class life.

He could have stayed comfortable and safe. Instead, he spent his twenties working hard jobs. He was a ranch hand, fruit picker, builder, and surveyor. He was learning how working people really lived.

His early success came with Tortilla Flat in 1935, about Mexican American life in Monterey. Then, In Dubious Battle in 1936, about striking farm workers. Then, Of Mice and Men in 1937, about traveling laborers.

Each book moved closer to people pushed aside by society. Each showed where Steinbeck’s loyalty was.

 Then came The Grapes of Wrath, and everything changed.

When his hometown turned against him and powerful groups attacked him, Steinbeck did not stop writing. He kept going.

After The Grapes of Wrath, he wrote Cannery Row in 1945 about working-class Monterey. He later wrote East of Eden, his most ambitious work, about good and evil in California’s history.

During World War II, he worked as a war reporter. He focused on soldiers, not generals, and on daily life, not grand plans. He continued to write about people who were ignored and mistreated. Slowly, the country began to understand him.

By the 1960s, The Grapes of Wrath was taught in schools, even in places where it had once been banned. The book, once called dangerous, was now called a classic.

In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee praised his realistic writing and deep concern for human dignity. In simple terms, he told the truth about ordinary lives with care and skill.

Success did not erase the damage.

Steinbeck struggled with depression later in life. All three of his marriages ended. His relationships with his sons were difficult.

The anger and criticism never fully disappeared. In 1968, at age 66, Steinbeck died in New York City.

Today, Steinbeck’s books are read around the world.

The Grapes of Wrath is required reading in many schools. Of Mice and Men is one of the most taught novels in America. East of Eden is widely seen as a great American novel.

But his true legacy is larger than awards or sales. He wrote about people whom many others ignored. He showed that poverty is not a personal failure, but a result of broken systems. He insisted that suffering should be seen and questioned.

For that, his book was burned. He was attacked and watched. He was called a traitor in his own town.

He could have written safer stories. He chose not to. The book they burned now sits on library shelves everywhere.

That is what happens when someone writes the truth and refuses to look away.

{PS}

Edgar Allan Poe

 

He made nine dollars from the most famous poem in American history.

A dead drunk nobody invented modern detective fiction, horror literature, and science fiction. All while earning almost nothing.

Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old when he died.

Broke. 

Alone. 

Found delirious on the streets of Baltimore.

Everyone said he was a failure.

“Just a drunk who wrote weird stories.”

“Never made any real money.”

“Died in a gutter like a nobody.”

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Here’s what Poe built that no one saw coming:

He was orphaned before age 3. His foster father disowned him. 

He got kicked out of West Point. 

He watched his young wife die slowly of tuberculosis while he couldn’t afford to keep her warm.

Every door slammed in his face.

But Poe had something no one could take from him.

The ability to see darkness clearly. And turn it into words that burned into people’s minds.

When everyone else was writing polite poetry about flowers and nature, Poe wrote about murder. Madness. 

The terror hiding inside ordinary people.

Editors rejected him constantly.

“Too dark.”

“Too strange.”

“No one wants to read this.”

He didn’t listen.

He kept writing. 

Kept submitting. 

Kept getting rejected. 

Kept going anyway.

Then came “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

The first detective story ever written. 

The template that every crime novel, every mystery show, every procedural drama still follows today.

Before Poe, detective fiction didn’t exist.

He invented it.

Then came “The Raven.”

It made him famous overnight. 

People memorized it. 

Quoted it everywhere. 

It spread across the country.

And Poe made about nine dollars from it.

Nine dollars.

For a poem that’s been read by hundreds of millions of people.

He died poor. 

Alone. 

Unknown by most of the world.

But here’s what happened after.

Arthur Conan Doyle read Poe and created Sherlock Holmes. 

Said Poe’s detective was the model for everything that followed.

H.P. Lovecraft read Poe and built cosmic horror on his foundation.

Stephen King read Poe and called him the father of American horror.

Every detective show you watch. 

Every horror movie that makes you check the locks at night. 

Every psychological thriller that gets inside your head.

Poe built the blueprint.

Today his work is translated into every major language. 

Taught in every school. Referenced in every corner of popular culture.

All from a man who died thinking he was a failure.

He never saw any of it.

Never got rich. 

Never got recognition. 

Never got to see his influence spread across the entire world.

But he kept writing anyway.

Because he understood something most people don’t.

Your work doesn’t have to pay off in your lifetime to matter.

Your impact doesn’t have to be visible to you to be real.

Sometimes you plant seeds you’ll never see grow.

What story are you not telling because you think no one wants to hear it?

What work are you abandoning because it’s not paying off fast enough?

What creative risk are you avoiding because the world says it’s too dark, too weird, too different?

Poe watched his wife die. 

Lost every job he ever had. 

Got paid almost nothing for his best work. 

Died alone in the street.

And still became one of the most influential writers in human history.

Because he never stopped doing the work.

He never let rejection silence him.

He never let poverty stop him.

He never let anyone else’s opinion define what he created.

Your circumstances don’t determine your legacy.

Your consistency does.

Your commitment does.

Your willingness to keep going when everyone says quit.

That’s what separates people who change the world from people who just complain about it.

Poe had every excuse to give up.

He used none of them.

Stop waiting for permission. 

Stop waiting for payment. 

Stop waiting for recognition.

Do the work.

Tell your story.

Let the world catch up later.

Think Big.

{PS}

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The Brighter Side

 

👍  An Inspiring Story

A famous writer was in his study room. He picked up his pen and started writing :

**Last year, I had a surgery and my gall bladder was removed. I had to stay stuck to the bed due to this surgery for a long time. 

**The same year I reached the age of 60 years and had to give up my favourite job. I had spent 30 years of my life in this publishing company. 

**The same year I experienced the sorrow of the death of my father.

**And in the same year my son failed in his medical exam because he had a car accident. He had to stay in bed at hospital with the cast on for several days. The destruction of car was another loss. 

At the end he wrote: Oh God! It was such bad year !! 

When the writer's wife entered the room, she found her husband looking sad & lost in his thoughts. From behind his back she read what was written on the paper. She left the room silently and came back with another paper and placed it on side of her husband's writing.

When the writer saw this paper, he found his name written on it with following lines :

**Last year I finally got rid of my gall bladder due to which I had spent years in pain....

**I turned 60 with sound health and got retired from my job. Now I can utilize my time to write something better with more focus and peace.....

**The same year my father, at the age of 95, without depending on anyone or without any critical condition met his Creator.....

 **The same year, God blessed my son with a new life. My car was destroyed but my son stayed alive without getting any disability......

At the end she wrote: 

This year was an immense blessing of God and it passed well !!!

 The writer was indeed happy and amazed at such beautiful and encouraging interpretation of the happenings in his life in that year !!!

Moral : In daily lives we must see that its not happiness that makes us grateful but gratefulness that makes us happy. ❤

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Humor versus Lawak

 

𝗕𝗲𝗱𝗮 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶 𝗟𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗸

Lawak, yang kerap kita saksikan di televisi Indonesia tempo dulu (sekarang saya jarang menonton siaran lawak TV), adalah mengolok-olok, mencela, dan menertawai orang lain. Ada pihak yang dirundung secara sengaja untuk menciptakan lelucon. Ada pihak lain yang dikorbankan, dijadikan kobokan, objek penderita. Tentu orang tidak lupa pada Pak Bèndot yang selalu menjadi korban lawakan Srimulat.

𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗼𝗿 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗸. Humor justru mencela, mengolok-olok, dan menertawai diri sendiri, keluarga sendiri, kelompok sendiri, suku sendiri, bahkan bangsa sendiri. Humor mengalihrupa (𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮) tragedi hidup dirinya menjadi lelucon. Mark Twain mengatakan bahwa sumber humor adalah penderitaan, kebodohan, dan kesengsaraan diri sendiri. 𝗣𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗸 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘆𝗲𝗺𝗯𝘂𝗻𝘆𝗶𝗸𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗰𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗸-𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗸 𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻, 𝘁𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗽𝗶 𝗷𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗸𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗷𝗮𝘁𝗶 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗸𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗰𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘆𝗮 𝗸𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗱𝗮 𝗱𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗮. Presiden Gus Dur ketika didesak mundur oleh lawan politiknya dengan enteng beliau menjawab: “𝘔𝘢𝘫𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘫𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘪 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘩, 𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘪 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘶𝘩 𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘳.”

Keterusterangan dan kejujuran memang menakutkan. Jenakawan sejati senantiasa mampu menemukan humor dalam momen yang serius, termasuk tragedi dalam hidupnya, dialihrupakan menjadi lelucon. Saya terus belajar bagaimana menghumor, menertawai diri sendiri. Tidak ada yang dibanggakan nilai sekolah saya. Di perguruan tinggi IPK saya megap-megap. Kerap rekan kerja saya bertanya mengenai sekolah saya.

“𝘒𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢, 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘯?“ tanya rekan saya.

“𝘌𝘯𝘢𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘩 𝘵𝘢𝘩𝘶𝘯.“ jawab saya.

“𝘒𝘰𝘲 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢?”

“𝘏𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘯𝘺𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘩.”

Ia tertawa 𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘬𝘢𝘬 dan berhenti bertanya. Apa yang terjadi jika saya menjawab dengan alasan lain? Saya meyakini ia akan mengejar terus dengan pertanyaan tidak penting dan saya akan menguras energi melakukan pembelaan.

Saya dapat menunjukkan lagi bahwa humor bersumber dari penderitaan hidup. Ketika anda melakukan reuni mengapa anda bisa tertawa-tiwi tanpa henti saat bertemu sobat-sobat lama? Tentu saja anda menertawai penderitaan masa lalu entah itu kekonyolan saat sekolah, entah itu diusir guru dari kelas, entah itu ditolak oleh bakal calon pacar, entah itu jual celana jins demi bisa menonton 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘉𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, dan lain sejenisnya. Penderitaan bahkan tragedi saat sekolah anda alihrupakan menjadi lelucon yang menghibur diri anda dan orang lain. Dari  sini anda sebenarnya berbakat menjadi jenakawan sejati.

𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗸𝗸𝗮𝗻 𝗸𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗮𝗻. Bangsa ini kurang waras karena lebih gemar melawak, yaitu sibuk mencari dan menunjuk cacat-cacat orang lain. Mereka lupa melihat cacat diri sendiri. Selama orang tidak bisa berhumor, selama itu pula orang tidak waras. 

Juga jangan berharap humor ada di surga karena sumber humor adalah penderitaan atau cacat diri sendiri. Konon surga itu isinya senang-senang, bahagia, jingkrak-jingkrak, tidak ada penderitaan, tidak ada cacat. Itulah sebabnya tidak ada humor di surga.

“𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯.” Mark Twain

MDS 

Dari akun fesbuk Efron Bayern