Only when I am by seawater can I truly breathe, to say nothing of my ability to think.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep connection between the speaker and the sea, suggesting that nature influences clarity of thought and well-being.
In this quote, Thomas Bernhard highlights the profound impact that the sea has on his psyche and state of being. By indicating that he can only breathe and think clearly when near seawater, he conveys the idea that nature, specifically the ocean, is essential for his mental clarity and emotional health. This intimate connection reflects a broader theme of the restorative powers of nature, suggesting that individuals may find inspiration and solace in the natural world.
In practice
During a nature retreat, I shared this quote to illustrate the importance of the ocean for my mental health.
In theory we understand people, but in practice we can't put up with them, I thought, deal with them for the most part reluctantly and always treat them from our point of view. We should observe and treat people not from our point of view but from all angles, I thought, associate with them in such a way that we can say we associate with them so to speak in a completely unbiased way, which however isn't possible, since we actually are always biased against everybody.
Everyone is a virtuoso on his own instrument, but together they add up to an intolerable cacophony.
I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.
We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.
Everything is what it is, that's all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.
Women were like rivers, their banks were unreachable, the night often rang with the cries of the drowned.
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no voice other than our own.
We've poured our poisons into the world as though it were a bottomless pit.. and we go on gobbling them up. It's hard to imagine how the world could survive another century of this abuse, but nobody's really doing anything about it. It's a problem our children will have to solve, or their children.
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds ofjasmine, lilies, and myrtle; and when they Grow above me and thrive on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space.
Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children...let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money...and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship
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