Life is not at all what you might think it to be_x000D_ _x000D_ A simple tale where each thing has its history_x000D_ _x000D_ It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes_x000D_ _x000D_ Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.
Interpretation
Life is complex and unpredictable, encompassing both good and evil experiences.
This quote highlights the intricate nature of life, suggesting that it is not simply what we perceive it to be. It emphasizes that life consists of various experiences, each with its own history, and that good and evil coexist under the same fundamental principles. The essence of life includes a multitude of narratives and complexities beyond mere appearances or conflicts.
In practice
During a speech on the unpredictability of life, one might say this quote to illustrate the depth of human experience.
The evening light was like honey in the trees When you left me and walked to the end of the street Where the sunset abruptly ended. The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself To the fragile forget-me-not flower. You climbed aboard. Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones, Dreams I had, including suicide, Puff out the hot-air balloon now. It is bursting, it is about to burst
But always and sometimes questioning the old modes_x000D_ _x000D_ And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,_x000D_ _x000D_ Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual_x000D_ _x000D_ Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,_x000D_ _x000D_ Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.
Then let yourself love all that you take delight in_x000D_ _x000D_ Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage_x000D_ _x000D_ That shaped you and is passed on from age to age_x000D_ _x000D_ Down to your entity. Remain mysterious;_x000D_ _x000D_ Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.
until only infinity remained of beauty
The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
The sun fades like the spreading_x000D_ _x000D_ Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight_x000D_ _x000D_ Might be read as a warning to those desperate_x000D_ _x000D_ For easy solutions.
Most religions live from a narrative that shapes their relationship with the divine other, God or the gods, and with the human other, the stranger.
Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god.
In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.
Man and the animals are merely a passage and channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a haven for the dead, giving life by the death of others, a coffer full of corruption.
Any group of persons β prisoners, primitives, pilots, or patients β develop a life of their own that becomes meaningful, reasonable and normal once you get close to it.
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