A Quest In Question

A place for poetry, random thoughts and the ocassional book review. Please don't publish without my permission, but feel free to repost. Thanks for stopping by✨️

[quest-in-question]

Confucius, The Analects (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press version)

This is my favourite translation by far.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

I can clearly remember the moment I first realised my mother and I were living on completely different planes of existence. I was 7 years old and I came home from my school's first track and field day having placed second or third in every event. the teachers had been making jokes all afternoon about how many times they had to call my name. my friends thought I was cool as shit. my enemies thought I was cool as shit too, come to think of it. I was proud as hell. so I get home with the entire front of my shirt covered in ribbons like I was a military dictator who'd awarded himself every medal, I walk into the kitchen and tell my mum all about my day, and she goes "oh, that must be disappointing not getting any firsts." and I'm like no?? first of all the first place ribbons are red and I don't like red. second of all look at me. there's literally nowhere left on my body for accolades. I am fucking Jacked of All Trades. how could this possibly be a disappointment.

[quest-in-question]

Keep Everything - 5/11/2025

I have a friend who keeps everything. 

Let’s call him M. 

M has every picture he’s ever taken saved to his phone and backed up to so many places he’s lost track of them all. To make matters worse, he’s organised them all into folders with names that range anywhere from “XXXX” to “This was the best day of my life”. Apart from that, I'm willing to bet he has the entire internet downloaded to his laptop and hard drives. If you name any series or movie, it’s highly likely that he will be able to bring it up, even the more obscure ones. 

And it doesn’t stop there:  

His Chrome bookmarks tab is one of the most overstimulating things I’ve ever laid eyes upon. There are over a hundred folders and over a thousand tabs.

He walks around with a camping bag on campus everyday. There’s everything in there from the first aid kit to the frying pan. (And yet he always asks to borrow one of my pens??). I think it's also worth mentioning that our university campus is on 653 acres of land.

He has 5 apps just for reading novels. He’s also downloaded every book he’s ever read and desires to read. 

He walks with various adaptors and powerstrips in his bag daily. He had two surge protectors today. 

Long story short, when I first met M I thought he was mad. Three and a half years later, I still think he’s mad. But like all types of madness, I’ve come to see that there’s method to it. 

And in that method, I see fear.

I see a man who’s scared of losing everything.

I see a man who wants to gather beauty in desperate preparation for times when there will be none. 

I see someone with too much love in his heart getting ready to brave a world devoid of it.  

I didn’t understand him before. But I think I do now. And I’ve come to two startling realizations: 

I’m scared of losing everything now. 

I wasn’t scared enough at the thought of losing everything. 

I should have held on more.

Prior to meeting M, I was a person who was fixated on growth. I was the type of person who used every opportunity as a stepping stone to better myself and I constantly found myself jumping from one experience to the next. I never realized how deeply this was influencing me until one day, while visiting a used bookstore I frequent to trade in old books for new ones, I suddenly thought about my friend.

I thought, “If he was here, he wouldn’t be trading in any books. He’d be searching for more to buy.” 

And in that moment, something clicked. I looked down at my beloved copy of The Shadow of the Wind (It was so good and I should have read it earlier) and asked myself why I was going to trade this book in. I loved it so much, even though it wasn’t by any means the best book I’d ever read. 

But it made me feel something.

And anything that makes you feel something is by most definitions, a beautiful thing. 

Oxford Languages defines the word beautiful as, "pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically".

The Cambridge Dictionary defines beautiful as, "having an attractive quality that gives pleasure to those who experience it or think about it."

But enough about that.

In the end, I kept the book. 

I also began keeping things I wouldn’t usually keep— old receipts, tickets, packaging, you name it. I began collecting hard copies of books that I liked too, started backing up my photos, and started making bookmark folders for articles I found interesting. 

And even though I've changed in seemingly minor ways, I now look in the mirror and see a person who’s scared of losing everything.

But then another change reveals itself—I find myself wondering, is that really such a bad thing?

Is it wrong to not want to let go?

Is it wrong to let love mark all over you, even though you know that in the end you’ll be screaming and crying like a wounded animal in the end?

Will what I choose to adore be worth holding on to in the end? 

I don’t know the answer to these questions as yet. I don’t think M knows them either. But whatever the outcome is, I don’t think we will meet our ends in a quiet or lonely way.

And for that, I’m thankful.

[oshishira]

poem

'Do not go', I could say; but this is inauspicious.

'All right, go' is a loveless thing to say.

'Stay with me' is imperious'.

'Do as you wish' suggests Cold indifference.

And if I say 'I'll die When you are gone', you might or might not believe me.

Teach me, my love, what I ought to say

When you go away.

The source for this poem is John Brough, Poems From the Sanskrit (Penguin, 1968).

[quest-in-question]

CAT

[andileighwrites]

An Impossibility

...

Tonight

I want to reject the whir Of the fan that sits on the floor.

I'd be grateful if the creaks Living in the ceiling would suffocate.

I want to hear an absence of The usual comforts and distractions.

Tonight I want nothing,

An impossibility—there's always

Something

And even if there was nothing at all, I'd be tossed into everything

By a necessary alarm.

That is something too.

...

Andi Leigh 09/07/2024

[quest-in-question]

[memories-beneath-the-skin-deact]

I wish I could crack open the part of me that cares, pull it out of the marrow, release it into the void and breathe without feeling.

[writecourtneysloan]

I try to sow seeds of care, seeds of tomatoes and celery and fresh spring onions

I water my garden, I feed my garden, I lay with my garden

Yet all that comes up is weeds

They lick and scratch at my beautiful bounties

I have stopped watering you and yet the weeds grow

The will choke my garden and take me with them

[quest-in-question]

Tomorrow

I wish I could have seen the you 

who at least pretended to dance at dusk that day

The you who tiptoed alongside the final chord,

gracelessly 

all the way to the precipice

I imagined you pausing too late

as your right leg hung suspended

in the open air

the mud on your sneakers too visible, even in the retreating light

"Please," you whisper to the thin night-dyed veil 

Grasped firm in your small hand 

Dotted with doves

Adorned with fingernails that were always too sharp

"Let tomorrow be a kinder thing."