Life - the way it really is - is a battle not between Bad and Good but between Bad and Worse.
Interpretation
Life is a continuous struggle where the challenges often stem from varying levels of difficulty rather than a simple dichotomy of good versus bad.
In this quote, Joseph Brodsky reflects on the nature of life as a perpetual battle. He suggests that the conflicts we face are not simply about making moral choices between good and bad but rather navigating through a multitude of hardships, where the reality often presents us with worse options rather than easy distinctions between right and wrong. This perspective encourages us to embrace the complexity of our experiences and recognize that lifeβs challenges are nuanced and require critical thinking.
In practice
When giving a motivational speech about resilience, this quote can highlight the complexities of life's challenges.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those - in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
A noble person is mindful and thankful for the favors he receives from others.
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side. By our own spirits we are deified; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
I am this space my body believes in.
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
I am ashes where once I was fire.
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