Inspiring Minds: Bruce Lee

A friend posted this on Facebook recently, and I was floored. Who knew the martial art great Bruce Lee had the heart of a poet and a philosopher? Apparently a lot of people. Just not me. And maybe not you. In which case:

Wife Linda Dragon Philosophy

Read the story behind the letter here.

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In other words, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.

Such words … I couldn’t help but want to know more about this man. Turns out, not only was he a prolific letter writer (nods left—gift idea?), but he also studied drama and philosophy right here at Seattle’s University of Washington. That finally explains why he’s buried here, alongside his son, who’s memorial so poignantly reads:

“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

Let’s revel in the exquisite rarity of our deceptively everyday lives, or as Bruce said ” let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.” Because truly, there’s nothing common about it.

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