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.
The oak tree:_x000D_ _x000D_ not interested_x000D_ _x000D_ in cherry blossoms.
Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
A pilot's business is with the wind, and with the stars, with night, with sand, with the sea. He strives to outwit the forces of nature. He stares with expectancy for the coming of the dawn the way a gardener awaits the coming of spring. He looks forward to port as a promised land, and truth for him is what lives in the stars.
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
We need to save the Arctic not because of the polar bears, and not because it is the most beautiful place in the world, but because our very survival depends upon it.
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