Anyone who has spent a few nights in a tent during a storm can tell you: The world doesn't care all that much if you live or die.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the indifference of the world towards individual existence, especially in the face of nature's power.
Anthony Doerr's quote serves as a stark reminder of the vastness and indifference of the world around us. When faced with the raw forces of nature, such as a storm, one can realize that life is fragile and that the world does not inherently value individual existence. This perspective can lead to a deeper understanding of our place in the universe and motivate us to appreciate life's moments more intensely.
In practice
In a discussion about resilience, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of realizing life's fragility.
The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we're not careful, pretty soon we're gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack.
I used to think...that I had to be careful with how much I lived. As if life was a pocketful of coins. You only got so much and you didn't want to spend it all in one place...But now I know that life is the one thing in the world that never runs out. I might run out of mine, and you might run out of yours, but the world will never run out of life. And we're all very lucky to be part of something like that.
Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience--buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello--become new all over again.
I don't believe in reincarnation. I feel like we're here for such an appallingly brief period of time. I believe we each get this one trip, and if we're really, really fortunate, maybe we get 70 or 80 years on Earth.
My sister-in-law is a painter, and I'll say, how long did it take you to paint that painting. She'll say, It took me maybe three days, but it took me all my life to get the skills to paint that painting.
The preciousness of life and the changes of weather and the beauty of seasons - all those things have always sort of dazzled me.
Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.
Israel claims it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against any threat to its existence. The Arab world in return feels that this is an imbalanced system; there is a sense of humiliation and impotence.
The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.
As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.
But let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die
All concord's born of contraries.
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