And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it.
Interpretation
Strive to improve your life even if you can't control everything.
This quote by C.P. Cavafy emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for our lives. While we may not have full control over our circumstances, we should actively strive to avoid negative actions that would degrade our quality of life, suggesting that maintaining integrity and a sense of purpose is essential.
In practice
In a motivational talk about personal development.
Give me artificial flowers - porcelain and metal glories - neither fading nor decaying, forms unaging. Flowers of the splendid gardens of another place, where Forms and Styles and Knowledge dwell. I love flowers made of glass or gold, true Art's true gifts, their painted hues more beautiful than nature's, worked in nacre and enamel, with perfect leaves and branches.
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
To certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.
Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.
Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.
Real history is far more complex and interesting than the simplistic summaries presented in Wikipedia articles. Knowing this allows you to question received wisdom, to challenge 'facts' 'everybody' knows to be true, and to imagine worlds and characters worthy of our rich historical heritage and our complex selves.
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness", "joy", or "regret". Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that is oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions.
Tell her this And more,— That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With surplus of toys.
More than its utilitarian and technocratic transparency, it is the opaque ambivalence of its oddities that makes the city livable.
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