After endless depression, nights without sleep, realization that the life he had entered was calamitous, without hope, he slowly became lucid, even calm. He was able to read and think. The days dawned quietly. I am through it, he thought. Like the survivor of a wreck, he took stock of himself. He touched his limbs, his face, he began the essential process of forgetting what had passed. He was in a period of contentment with daily life, of peace. He looked about himself gratefully. It was still not completely real to him, it was a kind of scenery he watched like someone on a train, some of it vivid, going by, some of it bare.
Light Years
James Salter
Category: TRANSCIENCE
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In contemporary Western society, death is like white noise to a man in good health; it fills his mind when his dreams and plans fade. With age, the noise becomes increasingly insistent, like a dull roar with the occasional screech. In another age the sound meant waiting for the kingdom of God; it is now an anticipation of death. Such is life.
The Elementary Particles
Michel Houellebecq -
Then there is the question of dying, which we have carefully put far away from us, as something that is going to happen in the future – the future may be fifty years off or tomorrow. We are afraid of coming to an end, coming physically to an end and being separated from the things we have possessed, worked for, experienced – wife, husband, the house, the furniture, the little garden, the books and the poems we have written or hoped to write. And we are afraid to let all that go because we are the furniture, we are the picture that we possess; when we have the capacity to play the violin, we are that violin. Because we have identified ourselves with those things – we are all that and nothing else. Have you ever looked at it that way? You are the house – with the shutters, the bedroom, the furniture which you have very carefully polished for years, which you own – that is what you are. If you remove all that you are nothing.
And that is what you are afraid of – of being nothing. Isn’t it very strange how you spend forty years going to the office and when you stop doing these things you have heart trouble and die? You are the office, the files, the manager or the clerk or whatever your position is; you are that and nothing else. And you have a lot of ideas about God, goodness, truth, what society should be – that is all. Therein lies sorrow. To realize for yourself that you are that is great sorrow, but the greatest sorrow is that you do not realize it. To see that and find out what it means is to die.
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Just when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person. Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for. Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me. It was as if the house I had finally had no floors. The anguish completely paralyzed me. I could no longer sleep. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people’s problems. I lost all appetite for food and could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature. All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn’t know existed, a place full of demons.
—Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom
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“Nostalgia is denial, denial of the painful present.”
— Paul, Midnight in Paris (2011)
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Scuffs and dents are just one obvious kind of mark. Every comment you make to somebody also leaves a mark. It’s unlikely, perhaps impossible, that it would have exactly zero effect on the rest of that person’s life, and so we must assume that they are, to some degree, forever changed.
We’ve left a path of lasting evidence throughout our whole lives. In fact, that’s really all our lives are: the impressions we’ve left, the moments we’ve created, the marks we’ve made. Once you’re dead and gone, the work you did is still done. The things you built still stand, or maybe lean or lie in rubble, but they won’t go away. The people who knew you still know you, and still operate under your influence, whether they know it or not.
Every second you exist, you’re scattering a broad trail of signatures on who knows what, laying causes to an untold ocean of effects that will carry on far beyond your death. The person who invented paper is certainly dead. Did his life affect yours today?
The founders of your city, of your religion, of your language, are all probably dead too, to say nothing of your great grandparents, or theirs. What if they had done something different with their time?
Each action you take creates a resounding shock wave that never entirely dissipates. Even in the grand scope of the whole planet, it matters. You matter, much more than you probably think.
You’re not a drop in the bucket, quite the opposite. In a very real way, the world will be profoundly and permanently changed as a result of what you do while you’re here. It can’t be helped.
That’s a lot of responsibility. What are you going to do with it?
What Your Dinged Up Car Can Teach You About the Universe
