It seems like suffering's the only time we can see what's essential. If peace ever comes back I'm making a vow: I'll design myself special glasses. They'll block out whether people are fat or thin or beautiful or weird-looking, whether they have pimples or birthmarks or different coloured skin. They'll do everything suffering's done for us, but without the pain. I'm going to wear those glasses for the rest of my life.
Interpretation
Suffering can reveal the true essence of life beyond superficial judgments based on appearance.
In this quote, John Marsden reflects on how suffering has a unique ability to strip away the trivial and superficial aspects of life, allowing us to see what is truly important. He expresses a desire to carry this perspective forward, symbolized by the idea of wearing 'special glasses' that help focus on essential qualities rather than outward appearances, emphasizing a vision of acceptance and understanding devoid of pain.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience, one might use this quote to illustrate how challenges can enhance our perspective.
So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.
There are some things that once you've lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third.
The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret -- that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.
Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. [Therefore do not compare your lot with another's lest you see their advantages and lose the joy of what you already have.]
A part of a healthy conscience is being able to confront consciencelessness. When you teach your daughter, explicitly or by passive rejection, that she must ignore her outrage, that she must be kind and accepting to the point of not defending herself or other people, that she must not rock the boat for any reason, you are NOT strengthening her posocial sense, you are damaging it-and the first person she will stop protecting is herself.
It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.
It is very true, that the way you think creates reality for yourself.
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