A magical illusion and fabulous game

You have seen that the universe is at root
a magical illusion and a fabulous game,
and that there is no separate "you" to get something out of it,
as if life were a bank to be robbed.
The only real "you" is the one that comes and goes,
manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being.
For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view,
points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.

        Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

 

 

 

Long life

Life well spent is long.

        Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks

 

 

 

Character

Aging is no accident.
It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul.
We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years;
the older we become, the more our true natures emerge.
Thus the final years have a very important purpose:
the fulfillment and confirmation of one's character.

        James Hillman, The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life

 

 

 

 

 

In praise of trouble makers

Conformity may give you a quiet life;
it may even bring you to a University Chair.
But all change in history, all advance,
comes from the nonconformists.
If there had been no trouble-makers,
no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

         A. J. P. Taylor, The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett

Infinite passion

There is no end.
There is no beginning.
There is only the infinite passion of life.

        Federico Fellini, Fellini on Fellini

 

 

 

 

 

Back to School

The best reason to go to school,
    even if you're a so-called teacher,
        is to find out how much you don't know.

                Pico Iyer, The Best Reason to Go to College, New York Times, September 2020

A new day

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic
waiting somewhere behind the morning.

                    J. B. Priestley, Delight