It felt like those scenes of astronauts who, having finally rattled free of the earth's atmosphere, slip into the stillness of space. Except we weren't in space. We were on earth — finally, really on earth.
The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So… ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.
1mo ago
It is not length of life, but depth of life. The man who has lived longest is not he who has counted the most years, but he who has most felt life.
1mo ago
We are always getting ready to live, but never living. And yet the secret of all life is enjoyment; it is just to notice what is happening, to see it, to taste it in its fullness, to find the curious savor of it.
1mo ago
We are always getting ready to live, but never living. The vague promises of the future are enough to keep us tethered to the present without ever fully inhabiting it.
2mo ago
It is not length of life, but depth of life. Cut these words and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive.
2mo ago
It is not length of life, but depth of life. Cut these questionings short, and accept the universe as it is, and work in it rather than to understand it.
There's like this combination of a deep knowledge of music, a very comfortable and tactile relationship with his instrument, and this sensitivity that he's listening and reacting. He's not, like, sticking to a plan of, 'I know what I can do, and this will work.' He's listening. And there's this river of music inside of Jeff—all the stillness and the violence and the chaos and the absolute ethereal beauty that he can bring to music through his playing.
4mo ago
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A person's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue.
4mo ago
We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death. In fact, they are composed of thousands of days, each one a world in itself.
At eleven, I was beginning to see how the moment we incline action toward achievement, we drain the activity of joy; how anything we approach transactionally will never yield transcendence.
But as I sit in my house, so quiet I can hear the blood in my body, the sunset painting the sky a deep, pink hue, I can only think that all of these men are gone and I am still here. I continue, continue, and continue, to still be here. It seems I am in wait, Jodie Foster on the side of the road, letting the world, and the world beyond the world, whisper into my ears.
I know, you never intended to be in this world. But you're in it all the same. So why not get started immediately. I mean, belonging to it. There is so much to admire, to weep over.
At the back of our brains… [there is] a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life [is] to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder; so that a man sitting in a chair might suddenly understand that he [is] actually alive, and be happy.
Life is best understood and practiced as an art, the way that art is understood and practiced. We rely on inspiration, feeling for materials, knowledge of how to put things together well, patience, physical strength and awareness that we are part of a process which we don't know much about yet but which we live within and are sustained by.
There's so much to learn and to savor in friction, he suggests, be it waiting for a song on the radio to complete a prized mixtape or the deep connection we can find if we go through the time and trouble to ditch electronic communication and actually meet others, face to face.
6mo ago
The true paradox of consciousness is that we become most fully conscious precisely when we cease to think about consciousness at all, and surrender ourselves to the world.
For as long as we are waiting, we are not living. If we are not careful enough with the momentum of our own minds, we can live out our days in this expectant near-life existence.
7mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
