Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Dreams are beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk awhile with the still-are.
David MitchellRead
For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the insatiable desire for ownership prevalent among certain individuals, highlighting the irony in their perception of freedom despite their vast possessions.
David Mitchell's quote explores the paradox of ownership and freedom, suggesting that for certain individuals—specifically white men in this context—life is an endless pursuit of accumulation. Despite possessing immense wealth and control over resources, they still feel imprisoned by their own desires, reflecting on the human condition and the societal values that equate worth with material possession.
Themes
OwnershipFreedomDesireIronyMaterialism
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing capitalism and its effects on personal freedom.
More from David Mitchell
All quotes →The Revelation of Sonmi 451 To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds, that go on and are pushing themselves throughout all time. - Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
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…and there, in the background, the sky’s sediment had sunk to a place where all the woe of the words ‘I am’ dissolved into blue peace. He said it. ‘The ocean.
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How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner.
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. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.
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My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?
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