The despondency that follows makes me feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man who spies a sail, sees himself saved, and suddenly remembers that the lens of his spyglass has a flaw, a blurred spot -- the sail he has seen.
Jean GenetRead
Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
Interpretation
Betrayal can lead to profound emotional experiences, highlighting the complexity of human feelings.
Jean Genet's quote suggests that the experience of betrayal is essential for understanding deep feelings of joy and ecstasy. It posits that without experiencing the pain and complexity of betrayal, one remains unaware of the full spectrum of emotional highs and lows that life can offer, thereby missing a core aspect of human experience.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the depth of human emotions at a literature club.
The despondency that follows makes me feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man who spies a sail, sees himself saved, and suddenly remembers that the lens of his spyglass has a flaw, a blurred spot -- the sail he has seen.
Erotic play discloses a nameless world which is revealed by the nocturnal language of lovers. Such language is not written down. It is whispered into the ear at night in a hoarse voice. At dawn it is forgotten.
I'm homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green.
I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it would take in my whole body, and then the Universe, until all that would remain of me would be a ball of eaten thing which little by little would be annihilated: that is how I see the end of the world.
I decided to be what crime made of me.
It's a true image, born of a false spectacle.
What has been forgotten is never something purely individual. Everything forgotten mingles with what has been forgotten of the prehistoric world, forms countless, uncertain, changing compounds, yielding a constant flow of new, strange products.
And so it is, that both the Devil and the angelic Spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice.
Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecologic crisis can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not. We must rethink and refeel our nature and destiny.
Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?
She - philosophy is equally helpful to the rich and poor: neglect her, and she equally harms the young and old.
The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.
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