Social creatures

Human beings are social creatures -
not occasionally or by accident but always.
Sociability is one of our lives
as both cause and effect.

        Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

 

 

 

 

 

Modern times

People are less modern
    than the times in which they live

            Louis Menand, ‘Fractured Franchise’, The New Yorker

 

 

 

 

 

Holy comfort

It is a lie – any talk of God
That does not comfort you.

        Meister Eckhart, Love Poems from God

 

 

 

 

Poem: Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

            Derek Mahon

 

 

 

The purpose of life

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.”
I think the purpose of life is to be useful,
to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate.
It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something,
to have made some difference that you lived at all.

        Leo C. Rosten, The Myths by Which We Live

 

 

 

 

The challenge

The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest
within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.

        Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging

 

 

 

 

 

Understand?

Understanding,
    as we understand it,
        is misunderstanding.

                Elias Canetti, Auto-da-Fé