“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, fifty…Meaning requires content, content requires time, time requires resistance. Knowledge is distance, knowledge is status and the enemy of meaning.”
~ Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One (p.14-15)
Definitely a download. Though I must admit, the older I get, the less I know, the less I am able to put things into neat little boxes – and yet time races by with increasing speed.
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Yes. You. Me. And Socrates. We are in incredible company.
“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.”
~ Socrates
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And coffee – I think I’m in heaven.
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Thanks for sharing. Insightful. Really resonated for me, especially liked this: Meaning requires content, content requires time, time requires resistance.
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Yes, resonated for me too Vicki.
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It explains why our childhood seems to go on forever and then time picks up speed like crazy!.
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Exactly!
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Newtonian time is a fixed concept. It comes from resistance and less acceptance. Einstein time is a belief that we are where time comes from; the less we resist and the more we accept, the more time we have. If you believe in that sort of thing.
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Wow. Carolann. I had to read your comment 4x to comprehend. Deep.
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I’m not sure I understand it myself. It’s recently been introduced to me and it has me thinking–alot.
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I think you are walking on a higher level path. 🙂
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