When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the absurdity of how we isolate ourselves through material possessions and personal barriers.
Morrie Schwartz's quote reflects on the tendency of individuals to create boundaries and possess material goods as a means of establishing identity and security. It suggests that this behavior is not only absurd but also counterproductive to human connection, as true fulfillment often comes from shared experiences and relationships rather than hoarding possessions.
In practice
In a speech about minimalism, this quote can illustrate how possessions can hinder true happiness.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.
The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?
The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.
Death is a graduation. When we're taught all the things we came to teach, learned all the things we came to learn, then we're allowed to graduate.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
Listen; this world is the lunatic's sphere , _x000D_ Don't always agree it's real, _x000D_ Even with my feet upon it And the postman knowing my door _x000D_ My address is somewhere else.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and coalition partners stands as one of the greatest blunders in American history. The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, rose out of the the chaos, throwing the region into turmoil that hasn't been equaled since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
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