I stare out the window and reflect on the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one's imagination and one's goals and ambitions to create a character or a life worth saving.
Miriam ToewsRead
I had a thought, on the way home from the rock field, that the things we don't know about a person are the things that make them human, and it made me feel sad to think that, but sad in that reassuring way that some sadness has, a sadness that says welcome home in twelve different languages.
Interpretation
The unknown aspects of a person's identity contribute to their humanity, evoking a comforting sadness.
Miriam Toews reflects on the complexity of human nature, suggesting that it is the unshared experiences and secrets of individuals that enrich their humanity. This realization brings a bittersweet feeling, as it highlights the depth of connection possible through understanding the unseen parts of others, ultimately offering a sense of belonging and acceptance.
In practice
In a heartfelt speech at a community gathering.
I stare out the window and reflect on the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one's imagination and one's goals and ambitions to create a character or a life worth saving.
My father died beside trees on iron rails... He had 77 dollars on him at the time, and we used the money for Thai takeout because, as my friend Julie says about times like this, 'You still have to eat.'
When a person becomes a legend, the very thing that makes them human and knowable is killed off, so it's like being killed over and over and over again, for all eternity.
There are people who are just suicidal, regardless. They are built to self-destruct. It seems, in my family, like a virus that's resistant to any kind of help or care or medication.
A writer is always, always searching, even against her will, against all her better instincts, for the thread of a story. Everything is fodder. Everything is fuel. You can feel it coming on like the tingling of a sore throat. The brain never stops struggling to reshape every experience and feeling into a coherent narrative.
Writing helps me to create order out of chaos and make sense of things. It helps me to understand what I've experienced, what I've felt and seen, so it becomes a little easier to handle. On the other hand, I don't want it to be just a cathartic experience, an outpouring of grief or whatever it is.
The essential point here is that all people with small, insecure incomes are in the same boat and ought to be fighting on the same side. Probably we could do with a little less talk about' capitalist' and 'proletarian' and a little more about the robbers and the robbed.
Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean?
It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
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