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Sunday, February 26, 2012

outward / inward

Today I finished reading R. D. Laing's "The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise." I will be reading this again soon. Here's a passage from the last chapter that I can somewhat identify with...

"Who is not engaged in trying to impress, to leave a mark, to engrave his image on the others and the world - graven images held more dear than life itself? We wish to die leaving our imprints burned into the hearts of the others. What would life be if there were no one to remember us, to think of us when we are absent, to keep us alive when we are dead? And when we are dead, suddenly or gradually, our presence, scattered in ten or ten thousand hearts will fade and disappear. How many candles in how many hearts? Of such stuff is our hope and our despair."


But for a long time I've identified with the following one above other philosophies along the same vein. It seems to go a bit deeper, or more to the source, than the above (and is a bit cheerier), or who knows, maybe it's apples and oranges...

"What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else."
-Joseph Campbell

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