It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how life's unintended circumstances can lead individuals down dark paths despite their initial intentions.
Raymond Carver's quote captures the irony of human existence, highlighting that people rarely set out to make poor choices that lead to failure or moral decline. Instead, these outcomes often arise from a series of unforeseen events or decisions, suggesting a commentary on the unpredictability of life and the human condition.
In practice
When discussing the unpredictability of life choices during a motivational speech.
Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read. Fought against it for a minute. Then looked out the window at the rain. And gave over. Put myself entirely in the keep of this rainy morning. Would I live my life over again? Make the same unforgivable mistakes? Yes, given half a chance. Yes.
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.
Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.
When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.
When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.
Wine is one of the agreeable and essential ingredients of life
...life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live.
Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.
Don't feel badly when you take off work to go for a run, to go for a walk; don't feel badly to take time to play with your children, to be part of their lives. Work is important, but you can't work at your best unless you're a whole person.
I have a calling in my soul, if you like, to try to make my life in some way worthwhile. What is the value of my existence?
The most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and to not give in to peer pressure to try to be something that you're not.
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