The further on we go, the more meaning there is, but the less articulable. You live your life and the older you get- the more specifically you harvest- the more precious becomes every ounce and spasm. Your life and times don’t drain of meaning because they become more contradictory, ornamented by paradox, inexplicable. The less explicable, the more meaning. The less like a mathematics equation (a sum game); the more like music (significant secret).
Interpretation
As we age, life gains deeper meaning that can be hard to express, enriched by complexity and contradiction.
This quote by Gregory Maguire reflects on the nature of life's meaning as we gain experience and age. It suggests that with every year, our understanding of life deepens, but it also becomes increasingly complex and less tangible, much like music. The paradox of life means that the difficulties and complexities we face contribute to a richer understanding, rather than diminishing its significance. As we navigate through contradictions and nuances, we find that meaning doesn't simplify but intensifies, encouraging a profound appreciation of every moment.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students about the journey of life and learning.
And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.
She watched the sun bleed water out of the icicle. Warm and cold working together to make an icicle. Warm and cold anger working together to make a fury, a fury worthy enough to use as a weapon against the old things that still needed fighting.
The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private languages and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition.
Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much.
In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realize it is far more common for men to turn into rats.
The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar.
The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.
opened the door a crack wide enough for the entire world to pass through .
Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.
God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.
Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy... and no money to buy it with.
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