One of the glories and terrors of working in public is that you do see if your output means anything to anyone.
Jenny HolzerRead
BY YOUR RESPONSE TO DANGER IT IS_x000D_ EASY TO TELL HOW YOU HAVE LIVED _x000D_ AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO YOU._x000D_ YOU SHOW WHETHER YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE,_x000D_ WHETHER YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO,_x000D_ AND WHETHER YOU BELIEVE_x000D_ IT'S ANY GOOD TO ACT.
Interpretation
Our reactions to danger reveal our life experiences, self-worth, and beliefs about action.
This quote by Jenny Holzer suggests that how we respond to threats or challenges in life serves as a reflection of our past experiences, our sense of self-worth, and our belief in the value of taking action. It implies that our fight or flight response not only signifies our instinct for survival but also reveals deeper philosophical truths about our existence and our perceptions of deserving to live and act meaningfully.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience during tough times.
One of the glories and terrors of working in public is that you do see if your output means anything to anyone.
Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.
But a few choosing to venture deeper into the painful corridors of their affliction, found after a while that they could now grind and polish ever more exotic surfaces, hyperboloidial and even stranger, eventually including what we must term ‘imaginary’ shapes (which some preferred to term invisible).
There is "what is" only when there is no comparing and to live with "what is" is to be peaceful.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction - to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.
For the Baul, life is not a serious thing. It is fun, it is laughter, it is joy. So you cannot find anything like the seriousness of a church-goer, or the long faces of so-called religious people in the world of the Bauls. They love laughter, they love fun. They enjoy small things with tremendous respect. Ordinarily, religions are very long-faced, very sombre, serious, because they have to be - they are against life.
Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.
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