Don’t call a knife a knife…

Posted on by Live & Learn

Inspire, Inspiration, Self-Help, Success, Quote, Quotation, Philosphy, Inspiration, Jonathon Safran Foer,

“It sounds simple, I know. But it’s not. Listen, there are a million worlds you could make for yourself. Everyone you know has a completely different one — the woman in 5G, that cab driver over there, you. Sure, there are overlaps, but only in the details. Some people make their worlds around what they think reality is like. They convince themselves that they had nothing to do with their worlds’ creations or continuations. Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed soufflés and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are. But you want to make for yourself a world that is deliberately and meticulously personalized. A theater for your life, if I could put it like that. Don’t live an accident. Don’t call a knife a knife. Live a life that has never been lived before, in which everything you experience is yours and only yours. Make accidents on purpose. Call a knife a name by which only you will recognize it. Now I’m not a very smart man, but I’m not a dumb one, either. So listen: If you can manage what I’ve told you, as `i was never able to, you will give your life meaning.”

~ Jonathon Safran Foer: “If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe.”

Source: atomiclanterns via vlorin

29 thoughts on “Don’t call a knife a knife…”

    1. Yes magical. I’m with you. Don’t ask me what I thought they (flakka and plomb) meant (and what first came to mind) before I looked them up. 🙂 Have a good day Mimi.

      1. Laughing..it’s not easy to come up with a non-word for coffee and spoon. Hmm..I don’t think I want to know what first came to mind – it’s too early for me to be embarrassed. Unless I’m at the gym – where I am routinely embarrassed. Ah, I digress. Enjoy your day..

  2. Thank you for sharing this quote, David. I enjoyed reading your reply to my latest comments. They made me smile. Especially the one about the nachos. I thought about it this morning on my run. Have a great Thursday!

    1. Italy. Wow. Can I be just a bit envious! And yes, the trick is to find that purpose…and often that changes over time as we grow, age and find what was important before is no longer important today. Enjoy your trip Tina.

    1. Yes, they should. However, we’re not even getting the basics across to our kids (Reading, Writing, Math, Sciences)…not sure we are prepared to move into this plane…

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