Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
Natasha TretheweyRead
I think a person has to believe in something,_x000D_ or search out some kind of faith;_x000D_ otherwise life is empty, nothing._x000D_ How can you live not knowing why the cranes fly,_x000D_ why children are born, why there are stars in the sky..._x000D_ Either you know why you live,_x000D_ or it's all small, unnecessary bits.
Interpretation
Belief and faith give life purpose; without them, existence feels meaningless.
In this quote, Sarah Ruhl emphasizes the importance of having beliefs or a sense of faith to give life meaning and direction. She suggests that questioning the reasons behind existence and the wonders of life, such as the beauty of nature and the act of creation, are essential to avoiding a life that feels trivial or empty.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about finding purpose in life.
Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.
I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality.
Symbolic violence is violence wielded with tacit complicity between its victims and its agents, insofar as both remain unconscious of submitting to or wielding it.
The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris.
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