No one's ever completely broken. It's just a matter of how much has to fall apart before the ember of life is exposed to air.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that everyone has an inherent resilience, and even in the darkest times, hope can emerge from struggle.
Charles Eisenstein's quote reflects on the idea that individuals may experience significant hardships that seem to break them, but ultimately, these challenges can unveil their inner strength and vitality. The 'ember of life' symbolizes the enduring spirit within each person, which can be reignited even after difficult periods when they are exposed to new light and possibilities.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
When everything is subject to money, then the scarcity of money makes everything scarce, including the basis of human life and happiness. Such is the life of the slave—one whose actions are compelled by threat to survival. Perhaps the deepest indication of our slavery is the monetization of time.
It is quite normal to fear what one most desires. We desire to transcend the Story of the World that has come to enslave us, that indeed is killing the planet. We fear what the end of that story will bring: the demise of much that is familiar.Fear it or not, it is happening already.
There is a vast territory between what we're trying to leave behind, and where we want to go - and we don't have any maps for that territory.
The cynic thinks that he is being practical and that the hopeful person is not. It is actually the other way around. Cynicism is paralyzing, while the naïve person tries what the cynic says is impossible and sometimes succeeds.
The gift economy represents a shift from consumption to contribution, transaction to trust, scarcity to abundance and isolation to community.
Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.
At the women's march, we held signs that said, 'Today we march, tomorrow we run.' They didn't believe us, but it's coming to pass.
If you hate the war, that’s fine. But you should still support the troops. They don’t get to pick where they’re deployed. They just gave the American people a blank check for anything up to and including the value of their lives, and the least everyone else can do is be thankful. Buy them dinner. Mow their yard. Bake them cookies.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
I think my biggest achievement is that, after going through a rather difficult time, I consider myself comparatively sane.
Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted.
Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.
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