The streets lie, the sidewalks lie, everything lies_x000D_ _x000D_ You can try and read it but you're gonna get it wrong...all wrong _x000D_ _x000D_ The summer evenings burn and melt and the nights glitter but you're gonna get it wrong _x000D_ _x000D_ And it's gonna sink its teeth into your flesh and pull you to the bottom.
Interpretation
Reality can be misleading and subjective, leading to misunderstandings and consequences.
In this quote, Henry Rollins expresses the idea that our perceptions of the world around us, including our experiences and emotions, can often be deceptive. He suggests that despite our attempts to understand or interpret these experiences, we are likely to misread their significance. The imagery of summer evenings that both burn and glitter emphasizes the duality of beauty and danger, ultimately warning that misunderstanding reality can lead to painful consequences.
In practice
This quote can be used as a reflection during a personal development workshop.
Some people see Black Friday as a much-needed break for their wallet. I see it as retail outlets showing the customers the full weight of their contempt. The frenzy to buy cheap crap from China, the human downgrade of people fighting with each other over items they can probably live without, to me, is an insult.
Strength is the product of struggle, you must do what others don't to achieve what others won't.
Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening to a song at a time via 7-inch single is enjoying the sublime state of solitude.
When the Iron doesn't want to come off the mat, it's the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn't teach you anything.
If you paid Americans a living wage, they would be able to pay for products made by Americans in America.
If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you
It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
In fact, entertainment has taken the place of celebration in the present world. But entertainment is quite different from celebration; entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator. In entertainment you watch others playing for you. So while celebration is active, entertainment is passive. In celebration you dance, while in entertainment you watch someone dancing, for which you pay him.
We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
From birth to death you go on living, groping in darkness with no light - and you could have created the light. You cannot find it in the scriptures; nobody can hand it to you. It is not purchased or sold; it is nontransferable. But you can create it - you can put all your energies together. You can start living consciously from this very moment.
You are awareness disguised as a human being.
Try as they may to savor the taste of eternity, their thoughts still twist and turn upon the ebb and flow of things in past and future time. But if only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimse the splendor of eternity, which is forever still.
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