It was both odd and unjust, a real example of pitiful arbitrariness of existance, that you were born into a particular time & held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. It gave you an indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-a-vis the future.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the arbitrary nature of time and existence, highlighting how our place in time affects our perspective.
The quote by Daniel Kehlmann expresses the idea that being born into a specific era is both fortunate and limiting. It emphasizes the randomness and unfairness of existence, suggesting that our time and environment shape our advantages and limitations in relation to both the past and the future. We are prisoners of our own time, and this confinement can make us feel either privileged or foolish when considering what has come before and what is yet to come.
In practice
During a lecture on philosophy, this quote can illustrate the complexities of existence and temporal perception.
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted -- Nevermore!
Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
Do you think we enjoy hearing about your brand-new million-dollar home when we can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and we're pushing thirty? A home you won in a genetic lottery, I might add, sheerly by dint of your having been born at the right time in history? You'd last about ten minutes if you were my age these days.
Live as a villain, die as a hero
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