epistaxis

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Once upon a time, the tao owned a piece of land. It was all he owned. But he cherished it, for it gave him three things, having which, he was content: life, first of all; and liberty, and happiness.

Then one day the Spaniard came and commanded him to pay tribute to the crown of Spain. The tao…

One of the most powerful pieces I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know.

We used part of this for a speech contest back in high school. My class got runner up, I think, but it’s said that the author favored our presentation over the winners’. It’s all good, though. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the process.

I think that was one of the highlights of my high school life. Funny. When I look back, it’s like the highlights of my earlier school years involve something to do with the performing arts. It’s like I learned more from those experiences as we had to do things hands on instead of via the usual classroom lecture setup. We learned that we had to pull all our resources together, how to manage all sorts of things—even each other, and how no performance is a good one without heart.

Then again, if I was asked to relay a “battle story”… Ok let’s play pretend. If I had grandkids and they asked me to tell them a war story, I’d tell them stories of how I grew up in and with the performing arts. I’d tell them how they saved me, made me who I am, and taught me such invaluable lessons you can likely never learn elsewhere.