The body shuts down when it has too much to bear; goes its own way quietly inside, waiting for a better time, leaving you numb and half alive.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how overwhelming burdens can lead to emotional and physical numbness as a form of self-preservation.
Jeanette Winterson's quote reflects on the human condition and the impact of bearing too much weightβwhether it be emotional, psychological, or physical. When individuals face insurmountable challenges or pain, the body instinctively reacts by shutting down, retreating into a state of numbness as a way to cope. This shutdown is not just a defense mechanism but also a temporary withdrawal while waiting for a more favorable time to confront life's difficulties, underscoring the resilience of the human spirit even in the most trying times.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity, this quote can be used to illustrate how people often disconnect during tough times.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
Right reason is stronger than force.
Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.
When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.
In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.
If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.
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