I remember nothing of this, no ambulance rides, nothing. Nothing between switching out the bedside lamp and the sudden indignity of rebirth: the slaps, the brightness, the tubing, the speed, the urgent insistence that I be choked back into breathing life. I have felt so sorry for babies ever since.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the traumatic and jarring experience of being born, highlighting the distressing aspects of this transition.
Stephen Fry's quote delves into the often overlooked trauma of birth, portraying it as a chaotic and uncomfortable process that, in its urgency, demands the newborn to adapt to the world instantly. He expresses a sense of empathy for babies, recognizing the shock and struggle they face during such a life-changing event, prompting readers to consider the profound impact of this initial experience on human life.
In practice
In a speech about the challenges of life, one might quote this to illustrate the struggles everyone faces from the very beginning.
I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.
To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.
There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.
As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.
You can't just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is.
Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point — a great crossroads in our life.
The beauty of life is in people who feel some obligation to enhance life. Without that, we're only half alive.
I remember watching the mascara tears flood the ivories and I thought, "It's OK to be sad." I've been trained to love my darkness.
You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life - so that if it were over tomorrow, you'd be content with yourself.
At my age, and in my circumstances, what sinister object, or personal emolument had I to seek after, in this life? The growing infirmities of age and the increasing love of retirement, daily confirm my decided predilection for domestic life: and the great Searcher of human hearts is my witness, that I have no wish, which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm.
They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.
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