You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
Interpretation
The journey of life often leads us to self-discovery through our creations and experiences.
In this quote, Borges illustrates the intricate connection between artistic expression and personal identity. As one navigates through life, the various elements and experiences they gather become a reflection of their own essence, ultimately revealing who they are. The 'labyrinth of lines' symbolizes both the complexity of life and the journey of understanding oneself, showing that all our endeavors, much like the drawings, ultimately point back to our true selves.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of self-exploration.
You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we'll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.
The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.
This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that these beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch this declaration of the mastery of God who, with magnificent irony, granted me both the gift of books and the night.
Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.
Is this a dagger which I see before me, _x000D_ _x000D_ The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. _x000D_ _x000D_ I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. _x000D_ _x000D_ Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible _x000D_ _x000D_ To feeling as to sight? or art thou but _x000D_ _x000D_ A dagger of the mind, a false creation, _x000D_ _x000D_ Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Who in the Bible besides Jesus knew--knew--that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?
Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
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