We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.
I wanted us to share the sense that the number of wrong moves far exceeds the number of good moves, to share the frightening instability of the correct decision, to bond in being confounded.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the complexity and uncertainty of decision-making, highlighting that wrong choices are more common than right ones.
Aleksandar Hemon's quote suggests that in life, we often face a vast number of wrong decisions compared to the rare moments of making the right choice. It emphasizes the shared struggle of navigating through confusing choices, and how this turmoil can foster a bond between individuals who experience similar challenges in decision-making. The notion of being confounded reflects the inherent instability and anxiety in striving for correctness amidst uncertainty.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the challenges of making important life choices, this quote can illustrate the shared experiences of decision-making struggles.
More from Aleksandar Hemon
All quotes →I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.
I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability — the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.
Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.
I loved you because there was no other place for me to go. We were married because we did not know what else to do with each other. You never knew me, nothing about me, what died inside me, what lived invisibly.
All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.
Similar quotes
I am an Addictive Personality, they say, a natural slave to passion - and many Doctors have warned me against it. I am a High-risk Patient.
To continue living, we have to die. That's the story of humanity - generation after generation - that we are going to die. There's nothing dramatic about death except that one loses one's life.
I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.
Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formatted, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God.
For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
He was near tears, 'Who do I blame?' he kept asking me. 'There is no God.I can only blame myself.'" The Reb's face tightened, as if in pain. "That," he said, softly, "is a terrible self-indictment." Worse than an unanswered prayer? "Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody's out there.