It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how life's unintended circumstances can lead individuals down dark paths despite their initial intentions.
Raymond Carver's quote captures the irony of human existence, highlighting that people rarely set out to make poor choices that lead to failure or moral decline. Instead, these outcomes often arise from a series of unforeseen events or decisions, suggesting a commentary on the unpredictability of life and the human condition.
In practice
When discussing the unpredictability of life choices during a motivational speech.
Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read. Fought against it for a minute. Then looked out the window at the rain. And gave over. Put myself entirely in the keep of this rainy morning. Would I live my life over again? Make the same unforgivable mistakes? Yes, given half a chance. Yes.
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.
Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.
When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.
When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.
Whimsy doesn't care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.
My story starts with my dad, a black boy born to a single mother in a small town in North Carolina. It starts with my parents meeting in Washington, D.C., in the '60s, at a time of incredible activism.
Because the only people for me are the mad ones.
If you want the beautiful moments to shine, you have to contrast that with dark and gruesome moments. That's the way life is.
We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashing of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with the same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke a thought aloud, 'Why doesn't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrads, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile.
You either ride life or it rides you. Your mental attitude determines who is 'rider' and who is 'horse.'
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