Reflections from 80 years back

I recently discovered Anais Nin.  It’s beyond cool and totally reassuring to hear my own thoughts reflected by someone who was born in the early 1900’s.  Too bad she isn’t here to have a cup of coffee with today.

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears

 like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.”  Anais Nin (The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume I)

against the current

Get it?!

 

 

 

“Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Loneliness bridging the gap to passion

“Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion — these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.”  David Foster Wallace

This is such an honest and relatable statement for me.  It is personal and intuitive.  Until very recently, I was too proud, afraid, insecure, and dishonest to admit that I was lonely.  Now, although still difficult to cope with sometimes, I find myself craving loneliness.  Nothing encourages me to seek out and stimulate those things that I am passionate about quite like the feeling of being lonely.  Being lonely forces you to reflect and it also stimulates growth.

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