The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help.
Interpretation
This quote explores the complexity of self-discovery compared to the more straightforward search for a divine figure.
Jeanette Winterson reflects on the nature of self-exploration in contrast to the quest for understanding God. She suggests that while there are numerous interpretations and teachings about God, the journey to understand oneself is deeply intricate and personal. This complexity highlights the notion that individual identity is often overlooked, as society is more focused on collective narratives surrounding divinity rather than the unique stories of individuals. The quote emphasizes the challenge of self-definition in a world that favors universal concepts over personal truths.
In practice
In a self-help workshop discussing personal growth.
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.
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
To become the enemy, see yourself as the enemy of the enemy
If you spend enough time around something like baboons, you start to look at humans differently.
That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.
We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.
Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.
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