No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that they exist. And his own adult future isn't real to him, either. Makes it that much easier to throw away.
Interpretation
Children often lack a full understanding of death and the feelings of others, impacting their perception of life choices.
This quote reflects on the limited understanding of death and existence that children, particularly eleven-year-olds, possess. It emphasizes the notion that their lack of awareness about the realities of life and the emotions of those around them can lead to a careless attitude towards significant decisions, including their own futures.
In practice
In a discussion about childhood perspectives on life and death, this quote highlights the wisdom of children.
Yet if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a successive life is simply to transfer the onus of purpose to the next generation; the displacements amounts to a cowardly and potentially infinite delay. Your children's answer, presumably, will be to procreate as well, and in doing so to distract themselves, to foist their own aimlessness onto their offspring.
For pity's sake, if you don't take a shine to a novel, there are loads more in the world; read something else. Continue suffering, and it's not the author's fault. It's yours.
In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But what is happiness?
You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself.
In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose that's prospectively boring to strangers.
Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.
As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.
...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword." "...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.
The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.
That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.
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