I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.
Robert WalserRead
How small life is here and how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bow their heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’s silence in a circle dance
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the contrast between the smallness of life and the vastness of emptiness, emphasizing nature's beauty and interconnectedness.
In this poignant quote, Robert Walser explores the existential themes of life and nothingness, suggesting that while human existence may seem insignificant against the backdrop of the universe, there is beauty in the simplicity of nature. The imagery of the trees bowing and the clouds dancing evokes a sense of harmony and quietude, inviting reflection on the interconnectedness of all beings within the vast silence of existence.
In practice
During a poetry reading about the beauty of nature.
I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.
I am not here [in the sanitarium] to write, but to be mad.
The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.
I love to doubt as well as know.
Self-sacrifice, not self-assertion, is the law of the highest universe.
When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.
You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry
If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you - the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.
The chance you had is the life you've got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives, ...but you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else.
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