The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.
Interpretation
Vengefulness traps individuals in a cycle of dependency on those who wronged them, delaying their own healing.
This quote illustrates the ironic nature of seeking revenge; it highlights how a desire for vengeance can create an unhealthy dependency on the person who inflicted harm. Rather than achieving freedom from pain, the injured party ties their emotional well-being to the suffering of their tormentor, ultimately hindering their own healing process and personal growth.
In practice
In a discussion about forgiveness at a community gathering.
Every day after lunch when I was writing my first book, I'd nibble a square of fine chocolate and meditate on all that had gone into its creation: the sun and rain that spilled on the cocoa plant, the soil that nourished it, the hands that picked the beans, and so on. My taste of chocolate became a lesson on the interconnectedness of things, and the infinite blessings for which I am grateful.
I identified in a very deep way with the individuals I was writing about because the theme that runs through this story is of extraordinary hardship and the will to overcome it.
Without dignity, identity is erased.
It's easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. They are only changed by the way people treat them.
Most people, when they hear the disease name, it's all they know about it. It sounds so mild. When I first was sick, for the first 10 years or so, I was dismissed. I was ridiculed and told I was lazy. It was a joke.
For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write
The petty man is eager to make boasts, yet desires that others should believe in him. He enthusiastically engages in deception, yet wants others to have affection for him. He conducts himself like an animal, yet wants others to think well of him.
My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong.
What's fascinating to me is the way that multiple stories go into creating any world - a fictional world, but certainly the world that we live in as well. Of course, I cannot control that world. I can just control the fictional world.
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.
The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.
Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together.
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