Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.
David WhyteRead
Absent the edge, we drown in numbness.
Interpretation
The absence of challenge or intensity in life can lead to a feeling of emptiness and disconnection.
David Whyte's quote speaks to the idea that without the challenges or 'edges' in our lives, we may fall into a state of numbness where we feel disconnected from our emotions and experiences. It suggests that it is the difficulties and intense moments that give life its meaning and vibrancy, rather than leading to despair, they can lead to deeper awareness and appreciation.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.
Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.
By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
The severest test of work today, is not of our strategies, but of our imaginations and identities.
We learn, grow and become compassionate and generous as much through exile as homecoming, as much through loss as gain, as much through giving things away as in receiving what we believe to be our due.
When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
Today it is becoming increasingly apparent to thoughtful Americans that we cannot fight the forces and ideas of imperialism abroad and maintain any form of imperialism at home. The war has done this to our thinking.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations.
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself. God can ask no more than that of us.
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