Zen Pencils — “Cartoon quotes from inspirational folks” — take some of the best quotes and statements out there and present them in comic form. They just updated their rendition of Sophie Scholl’s “I choose my own way to burn” statement to fit the current times. It’s worth reading:
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.”
“Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small.”
“It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you.”
“But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death…”
“…narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.”
“I choose my own way to burn.”
Sophie Scholl was a resistance fighter against the Nazis in Germany in the early 1940s. She was a key member of Weiße Rose — German for “White Rose” — a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich. Weiße Rose distributed leaflets, painted graffiti, and took part in actions to call out the Nazis and inspired resistance against fascism.
The Nazis executed her at the age of 21 for treason on February 22, 1943.
When you say you’re not political, you’re telling on yourself. What you’re saying is that you’ve only been on the receiving end of all these invisible perks the government provides, rather than being on the side that suffers from the lack of them or that is even actively harmed by them. For example, it’s only because of active participation in politics that same-sex marriages are legal. That happened less than five years ago, and it would no doubt be the dream of a conservative Supreme Court to overturn it. Try telling your gay friend, whose marriage status could be in real jeopardy based on election outcomes, that you’re not political and see how they react.
My move from Toronto to Florida — a little over eight years ago now — forced me to really apply a rule I try to follow: If you’ve been hanging onto something and never use it, let it go. Sell it, give it to someone who really needs it, or toss it. I’ve had to use this rule more since moving from Toronto to Tampa, as the move required me to take only what I could fit in my old car, and because I didn’t want to treat my mother’s basement in Toronto like a free storage place forever.
In spite of this rule, I’ve hung on to one piece of clothing that I’ve had since the very last days 1999 and that I almost never wear. It’s a grey zippered sweatshirt, which you can see below:
Me in the “Dad Sweatshirt.”
There’s nothing terribly bad about it; I like the color, but the cut’s all wrong, it’s a little too big, it has ridiculous snap-straps all over (in the photo, you can see one of them around the neck).
While it’s perfectly serviceable, I don’t like it enough to keep it under normal circumstances. It would’ve ended up at the drop-off of a Goodwill or some other charity ages ago. Still, I keep it, and I only get it dry-cleaned by professionals. Why? Because it’s a special gift from my dad.
Late December, 1999
In 1999, my former high school classmate André Fenton was doing neuroscience research at the Czech Academy of Sciences and decided that he wanted to ring in the year 2000 by throwing a big New Year’s Eve party in the nicest place that he could rent somewhere near Prague.
He found a great place — Zamek Roztěž(although these days, it’s marketed as Casa Serena Chateau and Gold Resort). It’s a “hunting castle” originally built in the late 1600s in the village of Roztěž, located in the Kutna Hora district, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Prague. I was invited to the party, and while there, had a grand old time:
Upon hearing that I would be staying at a castle somewhere in the central European woods in the dead of winter, Dad decided to surprise me by buying me something to keep me warm. That thing was the zippered sweatshirt, and he gave it to me just as he dropped me off at the airport to catch my flight to Amsterdam, and then Prague.
“I got this for you. I don’t want you to be cold when you’re in that castle.”
I thanked him for the sweatshirt, gave him a big hug, wished him a happy new year in advance, and told him that I’d send photos that I’d take with my still-newish digital camera (1024 by 768 pixels in super-fine mode!) to mom via email (he never had an email address).
It’s not really what I would’ve bought, but it’s big and warm, I thought, and it served me well on the flight, in the castle (which wasn’t all that cold — they’d been doing a fair bit of renovating), and especially well on a hike around the castle grounds with some lovely company on the night of January 1st, 2000.
Twenty years later
Because I am a big ol’ sentimental softie, not only have I kept this sweatshirt that I don’t really like all these years, but I take it with me whenever I go someplace cold, as a sort of comforting tradition.
I wore it walking through the streets of Prague. I had it on the slopes at Whistler while trying to figure out how snowboarding worked. I wore it when I was conducting mobile technology assessments in the bitter cold of Athabasca’s oil sands. As I drove through the snow-covered hills of West Virginia on those chilly days of March 2014 as I moved to Tampa to be with Anitra, I had it on. I bring it with me on our trips to Toronto in winter. I last wore it earlier this year when the temperatures in Tampa dropped to freezing and I had to cover the tropical plant in the front yard.
When I need it, it keeps me warm — not only in the physical sense, but also in the way that it reminds me of his kindness and generosity.
Dad died at the end of February 2006. But thanks to this sweatshirt that I normally wouldn’t be all that crazy about, I have a little bit of him that I can take with me when I’m cold and far from home. That’s why I’ll never part with it.
