Sunday, January 6, 2019

From Steinbeck

The Necessary Contradictions of Human Nature: 

"There are events in our personal lives and our collective history that seem categorically irredeemable, moments in which the grounds for gratefulness and hope have sunk so far below the sea level of sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is:  that of perspective."

I so loved the paragraph, no, not for Steinbeck's inimitable style and intensity, but for how deep and uplifting the thought is.

All of us learn to deal with those moments, all of us have our own backpack of flaws and mistakes..... dealing with which is not the big deal. We all muddle through.....difference is  in 'how we deal with them'. We mostly cope and in so doing, let them leave scars.......either on Self or on Relationships.  

The uplifting and lucidly hopeful part is in the perspective......if we could look at it not just as coping, but as actually getting true perspective, we could do so without losing in the bargain. 

Yet be our fullest self, and likely grow through the perspective.

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