Live Life’s Questions

ByHeather

“I want to beg you as much as I can . . . to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything.

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

“Take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your innermost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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    ByHeather

    Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.

    We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick a weapon and stand a post.

    — Aaron Sorkin, monologue by Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men.

    No apologies. This quote is simply a guilty pleasure.

  • Christopher Hitchens’ Guiding Principles

    ByHeather

    Beware the irrational, however seductive.

    Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself.

    Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others.

    Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

    Picture all experts as if they were mammals.

    Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity.

    Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

    — Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

    Your time of silence has come too soon. Thanks for the valiant fight.

    (Thanks to A.Word.A.Day for the reference.)

  • The Glance of a Speechless Animal

    ByHeather

    In the glance of a speechless animal there is a discourse that only the soul of the wise can really understand.

    — An Indian Poet

    While in graduate school at Purdue many years ago a friend and I made a road trip to the west coast. Along the way we took the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon with a goal of hiking down to the canyon floor. Although we were experienced hikers, neither of us were in the best of shape, and we were further weakened by the several days we had just spent driving across the country in a Honda Civic. Hiking all the way down to the canyon floor and all the way back up in a single day was strongly discouraged by the park authorities. Since campsites on the canyon floor were reserved far into the future, we were fortunate to snag a reservation for a campsite that was a couple of miles up from the canyon floor on a different trail. Our plan was to hike down one trail all the way to the bottom, take in the grandeur, then hike back up a few miles to camp for the night. The next day we would hike back out and continue our westward journey.

  • Contentment

    ByHeather

    There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

    — G. K Chesterton

    When Linda and I returned from our stint in London, we landed in New Jersey. Within a few weeks of our US re-entry, and for reasons that still escape us, we bought a beautiful, 2,400 square foot house with a large basement on the north side of Princeton. Despite the delightful, well-groomed neighborhood, we quickly began to discover the folly of our ways. The sweeping windows that let in so much light in the spring became a greenhouse in the heat of summer. It seemed cavernous to heat and cool. Finding enough furniture to fill all the rooms took the better part of a year. …

  • If You’re Alive…

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    Look, I really don’t want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you’re alive, you’ve got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy, colorful and lively.

    — Mel Brooks

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