Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?
Interpretation
The quote reflects the bittersweet nature of achieving one's goals where the fulfillment of a journey can lead to unexpected feelings of regret.
In this quote, Peter Matthiessen expresses a paradox experienced after a transformative journey. While he has safely returned from a beautiful and awe-inspiring adventure, there is a sense of regret that follows, suggesting that the experiences gained during the journey have changed him in ways that bring about a reflection on what was left behind or what could have been. This complex interplay of joy and sorrow highlights how significant experiences can have both fulfilling and disappointing elements.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a graduation speech to reflect on the bittersweet feelings of completing an educational journey.
Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions? For in this pure action, this pure moving of the bird, there is no time, no space, but only the free doing-being of this very moment -now!
The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.
I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak of the koan, this one is not different from myself. I know this mountain because I am this mountain, I can feel it breathing at this moment, as its grass tops stray against the snows. If the snow leopard should leap from the rock above and manifest itself before me - S-A-A-O! - then in that moment of pure fright, out of my wits, I might truly perceive it, and be free.
The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that I have found what I was searching for without ever having discovered what it was.
And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri.
To me, God is Truth and Love; God is ethics and morality: God is fearlessness. God is the source of Light and Life and yet He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience... He is a personal God to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who need His touch. He is the purest essence. He simply is to those who have faith. He is all things to all men.
If Africa seeks prosperity, it must provide for the health and nutrition of all – including the poorest.
Faith is illuminative, not operative; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin. The will is the source of action.
Life is no way to treat an animal.
Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all?
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