I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Doris LessingRead
Growing up is, after all, only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what every one shares.
Interpretation
Growing up involves recognizing the shared nature of individual experiences.
This quote by Doris Lessing encapsulates the essence of maturity as the realization that, despite our unique journeys, there are common threads that bind our experiences together. It suggests that personal growth is not just an individual endeavor but a collective understanding of the human experience and the emotions we all share.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of shared experiences.
I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Whatever's there to feel, feel it—the riddance, the relief, the fright and freedom, the fear of forgetting, the dull ache of your own mortality. Get with someone you can trust with tears, with anger, and wonderment and utter silence.
Wasn’t it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!
Like my mother, I was always saying, 'I'll fix my life one day.' It became clear when I saw her die without fulfilling her dreams that my time was now or maybe never.
I believe the act of giving birth to be the single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power. You think it can’t possibly be done, you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do-—and afterward you look at yourself in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do anything.
My death from the wrists, two name tags, blood worn like a corsage to bloom one on the left and one on the right.
. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.
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