It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
Interpretation
The quote depicts the emotional turmoil of feeling both intense pain and deep joy simultaneously.
Adrienne Rich highlights the complex nature of human emotions, suggesting that individuals often oscillate between feelings of pain, resentment, and vulnerability, alongside experiences of joy, tenderness, and fulfillment. This duality reflects the inherent ambivalence in relationships and personal experiences, where one can feel intense suffering and yet find moments of blissful gratification, emphasizing the intricate tapestry of human existence.
In practice
In a talk about emotional intelligence, one might use this quote to illustrate the complexity of human feelings.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling.
Every phenomenon of nature was a word, - the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas.
You need to rebel to see the other options and to get a much richer, fuller sense of the world. And it's only once you've worked through that and seen through that that you can come back and accept who you are. You have to try all the other options.
There's not some idea I'm going to create a work that's going to change everybody's consciousness.
There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.
Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something a lot better than any race. They were a People. They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created People in the history of the world.
A heathen philosopher once asked a Christian, 'Where is God'? The Christian answered, 'Let me first ask you, Where is He not?'
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