Tag: understand

Lightly Child, Lightly

~ Live & Learn ~ 12 Comments

Life should carry more meaning than the facts would bear. Which facts were these: we occupied a tiny corner of the universe, minor planet orbiting a minor star, in an even tinier corner of cosmological time. Still we wanted all of it, the sun and the moon and the firmament that held them, to be about us. This want had been bred into humanity, selected by nature, so it must have served some purpose once, but it had long outlived its usefulness… What was needed now was to know.

— Christopher Beha, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts: A Novel (Tin House Books, May 5, 2020)

Notes:

the last dance, you dance alone

~ Live & Learn ~ 31 Comments

“If things can be seen that differently, how many ways can they be seen differently? …

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding. It doesn’t do you any good to know that somewhere in some computer there are equations that perfectly model or perfectly don’t model something that is going on. We have all tended to give ourselves away to official ideologies and to say, ‘Well I may not understand, but someone understands.’

The fact of the matter is that only your own understanding is any good to you. Because it’s you that you’re going to live with and it’s you that you’re going to die with. As the song says, the last dance, you dance alone.”

~ Terence McKenna, True Hallucinations and the Archaic Revival

Notes: Quote, Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: Imgur (via Runawaydevill)

The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t.

~ Live & Learn ~ 23 Comments

petals

There’s actually no such thing as an adult. That word is a placeholder. We never grow up. We’re not supposed to. We’re born and that’s it. We get bigger. We live through great storms. We get soaked to the bone. We realize we’re waterproof. We strive for calm. We discover what makes us feel good. We do those things over and over. We learn what doesn’t feel good. We avoid those things at all cost. Sometimes we come together: huge groups in agreement. Sometimes we clap and dance. Sometimes we look like a migration of birds. We need to remind ourselves—each other—that we’re mere breaths. But, and this is important, sometimes we can be magnificent, to one person, even for a short time, like the perfect touch—the first time you see the ocean from the middle. Like every time you see the low, full moon. We keep on eating: chewing, pretending we know what’s going on. The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t. Each day we’re infants: plucking flower petals, full of wonder.

~ Micah Ling, from “Bon Iver: Holocene,” published in Hobart

Notes: Quote Source: My mind, it wanders. Photo: Maureen F. with (orange flower petals) picking up the light

(I Want to) x (26) + BAM!

~ Live & Learn ~ 20 Comments

Louise-Bourgeois-I-want

Psychoanalytical musings of Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010).

Source: sleepwalking.nu

 

Opia

~ Live & Learn ~ 8 Comments

opia – n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable–their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque–as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.