[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the transition from personal experiences to the broader, often chaotic world and the heavy burden of time.
Robert Penn Warren's quote delves into the profound journey of life as we leave the confines of our personal experiences and engage with the larger forces of the world. It highlights the inevitable clash between individual history and the collective tumult of life, emphasizing the weight of time's passage and the responsibilities that come with it. The 'convulsion of the world' symbolizes the unpredictability and chaos present in life, while 'the awful responsibility of Time' suggests a deep awareness of our actions and their consequences as we navigate through history.
In practice
During a graduation speech, one could use this quote to emphasize the transition students will face as they leave school.
...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after youβve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?
So little time we live in Time,_x000D_ _x000D_ And we learn all so painfully,_x000D_ _x000D_ That we may spare this hour's term_x000D_ _x000D_ To practice for Eternity.
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.
The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.
Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.
The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.
It is insufficient to say that my experience as a bully haunts me. Rather, my experience as a bully has been fundamental to the creation of my conscience, because it is what prevents me from making the basic human claim that I am a good person.
Human beings can only make sense of the world through the lens they were socialized to make sense of it through.
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