Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
May SartonRead
May we agree that private life is irrelevant? Multiple, mixed, ambiguous at best - out of it we try to fashion the crystal clear, the singular, the absolute, and that is what is relevant; that is what matters.
Interpretation
Private life can be complex and varied, but our goal is to seek clarity and relevance in our expressions and actions.
In this quote, May Sarton highlights the complexity and ambiguity of private life, suggesting that while it can be filled with nuances, what truly matters is our pursuit of clarity and relevance in our public lives. We often attempt to distill our experiences into clear, meaningful expressions that resonate beyond our personal complexities, indicating a desire for connection and understanding amidst the chaos of life.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the balance between private and public personas.
Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard.
She became for me an island of light, fun, wisdom where I could run with my discoveries and torments and hopes at any time of day and find welcome.
Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.
Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred.
I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that.
How everything you ever love will reject you or die. Everything you ever create will be thrown away. Everything you're proud of will end up as trash.
He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.
Women are the most denigrated social group in the Soviet Union. The idea of women's emancipation is only a slogan in - but also, I should say, in many places outside - the Soviet Union. But especially in the militaristic Soviet society, people only thought of life in terms of struggle and the workers' toil.
Government acquisition of food supplies in time of war is no less important than conscription. Equity is the fundamental principle applicable to both these essential phases of war administration.
Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.
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