“The measuring of worth and success in the terms of time, and the insistent demand for assurances of a promising future, make it impossible to live freely both in the present and in the "promising" future when it arrives. For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.”
This is spot on in my mind. Thank you for the quote and more imporatantly thank you for this remarkable diary of your thoughts as it challenges one to expand his or her capacity for empathy, ability to absorb loss and brings into sharper focus our existential existence.
I don't always keep up with the posts, but I have to tell you, each time I do, I learn something about life and the strange beauty and bittersweetness of grief . I so appreciate you sharing your soul, Kelly. You are truly an exceptional man, and please consider these posts an act of volunteering. You sharing this is as beneficial as an urban garden... cuz I kinda feel a daffodil sprouting from my head. Thank you for inspiring... for planting, tilling, sharing... and finding the words.
In regard to U of Chicago, you wrote, "This is such a tricky area - especially on a campus where, as one of them said, “young men and women who have never failed show up on campus and start failing for the first time in their lives and they are totally unequipped to handle it.”"
Has it ever occurred to the people at U of C that it is their system that is at fault? The students are obviously brilliant and eager to learn, and yet the school is set up to make them believe they are "failing"? This seems like institutionalized narcissism, putting the young upstarts in their place. Or perhaps it is set up that way to make the students cutthroat and competetive with each other, rather than cooperative with each other.
Other selective schools have seen the folly of tearing down brilliant minds and have stopped giving grades. If a school has chosen the best and brightest for students, it is the fault of the school if those students are "failing." Instead of coming up with ways that students can cope with a twisted system designed to take away their joy in learning, how about change the system? I have been on the U of C campus many times, and in fact was there for a full semester in a seminar a year ago, and have yet to see a student smile or laugh.
Didn't see a post last night and mentioned it to Randy. I realized that I've come to look forward to your thoughts and insights. Your ability to read so much and to synthesize it into something for others to ponder is a true gift. Please tell Anne that Spring is around the corner and that I will be in touch next week regarding the trellises for your backyard. I hope that on the occasional warm day you've had a chance to sit in the garden with the warm sun on your face.
I am so admiring of the breadth of your reading, and the way your reading, your thoughts and your feelings twine upward together, providing footholds and views - with apologies to Alan Watts - of where you've been and what's immediately ahead.. In truth, you're my Cliff Notes for deep books I'm too scattered to get through, but the excerpts you select give me so much to chew on. Keep on climbing that vine, and love to all Liberas and Leonards.
This is spot on in my mind. Thank you for the quote and more imporatantly thank you for this remarkable diary of your thoughts as it challenges one to expand his or her capacity for empathy, ability to absorb loss and brings into sharper focus our existential existence.