We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on transforming emptiness into something divine while learning the value of self-sufficiency.
Marya Hornbacher's quote suggests that we have the ability to take what is bare and lifeless (skeletons) and elevate it into something beautiful and worshipped (goddesses). This transformation signifies a deeper understanding of our own needs and desires, prompting us to consider how we can cultivate strength and independence instead of relying on external sources for fulfillment.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-improvement, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of transforming hardships into strengths.
I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get rid of dinner. Of course, by then, throwing up was the only way I knew how to deal with fear. That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.
Soon madness has worn you down. Itβs easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says youβre worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.
There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.
Hospitalizations in general are blurry. The days are the same, precisely the same. Nothing changes. Life melts down to a simple progression of meals. They become a way of life fairly quickly. You may welcome this transition. It may seem inevitable to you. You have been removed from the world. It is all right, in a way, because there is nothing so sure, so safe, as routine.
For a long time I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame.
I know how this feels: the tightening of the chest, the panic, the what-have-I-done-wait-I-was-kidding. Eating disorders linger so long undetected, eroding the body in silence, and then they strike. The secret is out. You're dying.
There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.
When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.
Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.
By all that is sacred in our hope for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system!
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
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