It’s incredible how one runs about frantically at times like a rat in a maze, not really knowing right from wrong (and often really not caring), victim of one’s own passions and instincts rather than master of one’s own soul. I suppose the proper thing to do is just to stop every now and then and say, Where am I heading? Actually, though I’m still much like the psychologist’s rat, I find myself asking myself that question almost too often. I suppose the very fact that I realize my indulgence in too much introspection is another sign (I hope) of maturity. Too much brooding is unhealthy and, although I still have my slumps, I’ve begun to realize that one of the great secrets is striking a balance between thought and action… Living, acting, thinking; not just vegetating neurotically, on one hand, or blundering about, on the other hand, like so many people do, like trapped flies. It’s a hard balance to strike, but I think it can be done, and that in this exciting-sorrowful age of ours it can make great literature.
~ William Styron, 1967 Pulitzer Prize winner, in a letter to his Father in 1949
Quote Source: Brainpickings. Photo: ei-ka-dan
Live & Learn 
Great literature and happier living
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There it is….
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Did it make for great literature?
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It did!
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I can relate to feeling like a rat in a maze!
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Me too!
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“I suppose the proper thing to do is just to stop every now and then and say, Where am I heading?” Definitely!
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Smiling. Yes.
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yes, it can be done –
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In a world that promotes subjective truth, it’s no wonder that there is so many confused participants. Every issue is either right or wrong. And as G.k. Chesterton says:”Just because a person has a right to do something, doesn’t mean that he is right in doing it.”
An examination of conscience at the end of each day is a valuable practice. It keeps us in touch with the reality that there is good and evil in the world. A reality that is avoided like the plaque in a subjective secular world. Yet in that examination of conscience there is a question to be asked: Are we on the the side of light or on the side of darkness? In the end, that is what is left us, and we have to decide.
It is as simple as that.
-Alan
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And, again, you’ve left me pondering. Thank you Alan.
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