Although sometimes the morbid is also the transcendent, the transcendent cannot be reduced to the morbid.
Interpretation
The transcendent aspects of life cannot be diminished by darker, morbid experiences, even if there exists a connection between them.
This quote by Siri Hustvedt suggests that while there are moments in life that may seem bleak or morbid, these experiences can also lead to elevated, transcendent states of being. However, it emphasizes that the profound and uplifting aspects of existence are distinct and cannot be entirely defined or limited by the darker, more somber experiences we encounter. It invites reflection on the complexity of human experience where suffering can coexist with beauty, but they are not one and the same.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion on existential philosophy at a seminar.
Perception plays a vital role in the diagnosis of bipolar illness. Symptoms are perceived through the categories of psychiatric medicine at a given moment in history, categories which are continually shifting and being named or renamed.
Our memory fragments don't have any coherence until they're imagined in words. Time is a property of language, of syntax, and tense.
All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.
I don't want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be covered by an envelope that you have to rip open in order to get at. I want there to be a waiting time -a pause between the writing and the reading. I want us to be careful about what we say to each other. I want the miles between us to be real and long. This will be our law -that we write our dailiness and our suffering very, very carefully.
under our love making I felt a bleakness that couldnt be dispelled. The sadness was in both of us, and I think we pitied ourselves that night, as if we were other people looking down on the couple who lay together on the bed
People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.
For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
All these seven colors are part of one rainbow, yet they are all different. They have their own quality, their own identity, their own flavor to it. So it is a rainbow. The Divine loves diversity, that is why he made us all different.
Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful comes death on a strange hour unannounced, unplanned for like a scaring over-friendly guest you've brought to bed Death makes angels of us all & gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws
Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?
The first thing which will be judged among a man's deeds on the Day of Resurrection is the Prayer. If this is in good order then he will succeed and prosper but if it is defective then he will fail and will be a loser.
World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
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