5 quotations that will change your life!
But are way more fun to poke fun at. Misattributions beware.¹
- “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
While you can take this one in many directions, it does make you question why you should make your bed in the morning? Or breakfast for that matter? Except, if you didn’t make breakfast, because you know, it takes 2 minutes to fry up an egg and then you presumably have 3.5 million more minutes left in your life, is breakfast worth it. No! Only the struggle against the nameless, faceless powers that subvert the human condition into one of consumerist greed is truly worth the struggle (that or theoretical physics, but that sounds a bit brainy for those of us within a couple of standard deviations of the median IQ).
And yet, if that is truly the case, how do you feed yourself? What about breathing? Surely oxygenating one’s blood is worth it. But then if you didn’t take a breath, wouldn’t it then be something you didn’t do within your lifetime? So the act of not doing it makes it worthwhile but by doing it, it's not. If nothing else, this is a much better version of “the dog ate my homework.”
2. “Never confuse motion with action” — Ernest Hemingway
One, not Hemingway. Two, okay, thanks, not Ernest, I appreciate the insight. I guess why not say “never confuse action with motion.” Isn’t that what all bad-a$$ TV shows and movies teach?² The guy who sits in the chair stroking the cat or handing out favors before his daughter’s wedding isn’t moving a whole lot but there’s a movie built around that not-motion. Quite the production budget for these “not-motion” movies. How to make others do something without getting out of your chair (so you can enjoy 14 strawberry daiquiris in one sitting), now that sounds like Hemingway.
3. “The Existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom” — Viktor Frankl
So what if there was actually a physical Existential vacuum? I guess it would be easier to say that life sucks and that finding meaning can be fuzzy at times, but does that actually have a true form? And what if the 51st state in the U.S. was Boredom? “Now leaving Nebraska and entering Boredom!” I guess that transition would be imperceptible. On the plus side, it would be more acceptable to respond you are in a constant state of boredom when asked how your week is going.
4. “Madness is rare in individuals but in groups, parties, nations, and ages, it is the rule.” Nietzsche
These days groups, parties, and nations are so mad that they are almost not mad. The madness makes them not crazy. Or at least that seems to be the best defense for most liberal democracies right now.
5. “Everyone can play his part in the farce, and act an honest role on the stage. But to be disciplined within, in one’s own breast, where all is permissible and all is concealed. That is the point.” — Montaigne
“All is concealed” — Yes, I think where this goes wrong is the biggest farce that exists is usually within one’s breast. I mean what if you are incredibly disciplined at the wrong thing and you don’t know it! Could it not be better to just not be disciplined within one’s breast so then you knew(?) that you weren’t part of your own farce, thereby enjoying the freedom of knowing that you aren’t tied to something manufactured or illusory?
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[1] So if yesterday’s post wasn’t “mail it in day” on 30 days of writing, today certainly is. There are deep and impactful ways to read these quotes, yes. But why make life so serious all the time.
[2] The fact that I used dollar signs instead of the letter S is a disqualification to be able to use the word ass in a post and definitely undercuts the whole point of using the word in a sentence. But then isn’t that the point?
