I perceive a necessary gap between seeing and being. I would not be able to have said certain things if I had been under the obligation to unify the word and the deed. As it is I can let my words reach out and net impossible things - things that are impossible for me to do. And this is a way to pay the price for saying or seeing things.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the distinction between thought and action, suggesting that one can envision possibilities beyond their current capabilities.
Norman O. Brown discusses the inherent separation between what we perceive and what we are able to accomplish in life. He argues that the ability to express ideas freely, even those beyond our grasp, allows for a richer imagination and a broader understanding of potential realities. This 'gap' permits us to explore thoughts and concepts that may never translate into action, thus enabling a creative freedom in our expressions that can inspire change or provoke thought.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of envisioning new ideas.
Mankind today is still making history without having any conscious idea of what it really wants or under what conditions it would stop being unhappy; in fact what it is doing seems to be making itself more unhappy and calling that unhappiness progress.
Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad.
The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation. The human body is an energy system which is never a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new.
If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.
Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.
breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.
To feel absolutely right is the beginning of the end.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
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