Many of us, when tiring of local headlines, conflicting e-mails and disruptive phone messages, often decide to take the advice of Leonardo Da Vinci:

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgement… Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.”

An $8.35 ferry ticket can be an extremely valuable expenditure in enabling a car and driver to gather thoughts off island. While realizing that wherever we go, there we are, no ferry rate increase will ever be greater than the value of time away from one’s island routine.

It has been way too easy lately to get pulled into the negative energy related by local press and street talk. Lately, the “Gospel According to Gossip” has been hotter than a depot stove.

Seems to me that we could all enjoy some pleasant reminders from some heretofore presented wisdom makers. These pearls surfaced for me as I was enlightening south on I-5 the last couple of days.

From French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

From Prince Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddah (563 BC-483 BC): “Do not believe what you have heard. Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations. Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times. Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage. Do not believe in conjecture. Do not believe in authority or teachers or elders. But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.”

From sixth century BC Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu: “To give no trust is to get no trust.”

From Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC), The Six Mistakes of Man:

“The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others; the tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected; insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; refusing to set aside trivial preferences; neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study; attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”

I hear the rustling of Sunday church programs on that last Ciceroism.

Finally, from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s spirit stockpile comes this verse, entitled “Fable”:

“The mountain and the squirrel had a quarrel/and the former called the latter “Little Prig”/Bun replied, “You are doubtless very big/But all sorts of things and weather must be taken in together to make up a year and a sphere. And I think it’s no disgrace to occupy my place./If I’m not as large as you, you are not so small as I, and not half so spry./I’ll not deny you make a very pretty squirrel track/Talents differ: all is well and wisely put/If I cannot carry forests on my back, neither can you crack a nut.”

In his book, “Handle with Prayer,” Alan Cohen suggests that worrying is really praying for what we do not want to have happen.

Whoops.

I better watch what I think, not just what I eat.

I better watch what I say, not just what I hear.

In fact, I best remember at least these 15 words from Cohen’s book.

“Do not speak unless what you have to say is more powerful than the silence.”

At least that might make for shorter meetings, eh?