Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that even painful experiences can hold a sense of nostalgia or value.
Sebastian Junger's quote reflects on the complex emotions associated with trauma and nostalgia. It implies that the experiences we endure during challenging times, such as war, leave lasting impacts, and that the memories tied to these experiences, no matter how painful, can evoke a longing for the intensity and camaraderie of those moments, despite the suffering they may have caused.
In practice
This quote can be used to spark discussions on the psychological effects of war during a veterans' gathering.
The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one anotherβs lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.
The cause doesn't have to be righteous and battle doesn't have to be winnable; but over and over again throughout history, men have chosen to die in battle with their friends rather than to flee on their own and survive.
When you're scared, you're still hanging on to life. When you're ready to die, you let it go. A sort of emptying out occurs, a giving up on the world that seems oddly familiar even if you've never done it before.
It's fun to have money, but the more money I get, the less interesting it becomes. If you don't have very much, you have to think about it. If you are starving, you become interested in food. If you are struggling to pay the bills, money becomes tragically important.
In some ways, risk-taking is the ultimate act of self-indulgence , an obscene insult to the preciousness of life. And yet, how can one dismiss something that persists despite every reasonable theory that it shouldn't?
I decided to start a medical training program for freelancers, only freelancers. They're the ones who are doing most of the combat reporting. They're taking most of the risks. They're absorbing most of the casualties. And they're the most underserved and under-resourced of everyone in the entire news business.
Attack those concepts such as 'third world.' Think about it. If we look at it in terms of numbers, then people of color are the majority in this world. We should be the 'first world.'
Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires
So be my passing! My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gathered in the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the Master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.
My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.
People are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George.
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