My contention is that as long as you have other faculties-the emotional, psychological, intuitive faculties-you haven't lost yourself or even diminished yourself. Don't be ashamed when you're physically limited or dysfunctional; don't think that you're any less because of your condition. In fact, I feel I am even more myself than I was before I got this illness because I have been able to transcend many of the psychological and emotional limitations I had before I developed ALS.
Interpretation
Emotional and psychological strength can overcome physical limitations.
This quote emphasizes the idea that one's identity and worth are not solely defined by physical abilities. It suggests that emotional and psychological faculties can lead to a deeper understanding of oneself, allowing individuals to transcend limitations and find strength in adversity, as exemplified by the author's experience with ALS.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech for those facing chronic illness.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
And at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists.
I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being.
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
I'm for human lib, the liberation of all people, not just black people or female people or gay people.
You must be strong, dear brothers and sisters. You must be strong with the strength that comes from faith.
People think racist abuse stops on the football pitch, but that's just the beginning. When you go home, you are still confronted with it. Football is just a magnifying glass of the real world.
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