Perhaps a wiser eye than hers would be able to read tomorrow in tonight's stars, but where was the fun in that? It was better not to know. Better to be alive in the Here and the Now--in this bright, laughing moment--and let the Hours to come take care of themselves.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of living in the present rather than worrying about the future.
In this quote, Clive Barker suggests that while it may be possible to foresee what the future holds, there is a certain joy and fulfillment in embracing the present moment. The speaker advocates for a life lived fully in the 'Here and the Now', implying that happiness is found not in speculation about tomorrow but in the enjoyment of today's experiences.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mindfulness, one might say, 'As Clive Barker reminds us, it's crucial to live in the Here and the Now.'
Of course it’s the apparently tranquil periods that deceive us. Though our instruments or our senses or our wits may not be able to see the processes that are leading toward these clusters of events, they’re happening. The star, the wheel, the butterfly—all are in a subtle state of unrest, waiting for the moment when some invisible mechanism signals that the time has come. Then the star explodes; the wheel makes poor men rich; the butterfly mates and dies.
We’re too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.
In this sense love is of a different order to any other phenomenon, for it may be both an event and a sign of that invisible mechanism I spoke of before; perhaps the finest sign, the most certain. In it’s throes we need neither luck nor science. We are the wheel, and the man who profits by it. We are the star, and the darkness it pierces. We are the butterfly, brief and beautiful.
With the inevitability of a tongue returning to probe a painful tooth, we come back and back and back again to our fears, sitting to talk them over with the eagerness of a hungry man before a full and steaming plate.
You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.
I'm not the expert on the great gameplay. I come in for the character design, monsters, atmosphere. I'm not the technician.
It helps to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two of them nothing can be done, so it's no use worrying; and two perhaps can be settled.
I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.
Rather than regret for what I have written, I feel regret for what I shall never be able to read.
The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on that subject.
The moon stays bright when it doesn't avoid the night.
The madness of depression is, generally speaking, the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.