The world does not wait

[andrewducker]

zoethe writes about the way the world is, and how it gives no quarter and has no patience.

And she's right - it's a good read, and well worth a look.

The thing is, just because that's the base nature of the world, it doesn't mean we can't do something to soften the blow and make the world more comfortable and livable.

The world may not care, but I do.

Comments

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

She's an interesting read - thanks for pointing that one out.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

"Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."- The Princes Bride.
Man, I've been gagging to use that line in a discussion on Buddhist ethics for years now. Ta for that!

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Both in quality of writing and subject.

Attempting to cope with difficulties is admirable and I have limited patience for those that don't bother.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

And what of those who chose not to see the difficulty as "this too will pass"?

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think saying "the world has no patience" is a little overdramatic. Some people in the world have patience and some don't. Does personifying the world get us anywhere?

[andrewducker]

It's not all about people. It's also about the large numbers of impersonal things that happen to us all the time.

the drowned and the saved

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

i'll post my reply to her entry here, because there are like a gazzilion on her post, and i want to be seen:

there are those that can and those that can't - Primo Levi, survivor of the concentration camps, called them the drowned and the saved, there was no predicting, prior to the exertion of the selective, intolerable pressure, which camp any individual would fall into, some were activated into a frenzy of survival, others succumbed to a slough of apathy and resignation, they were called the musselmen, the ones who had given up - the drowned and the saved. few situations in contemporary life in the cosy west polarise us quite so definitively, but when the chips come down the urge to cope or to lie down and die is no more a quality we can take credit for than we can the size of our nose or the colour of our eyes.

Re: the drowned and the saved

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I'll maybe agree how that what you *feel* like doing/not doing under such circumstances (or milder ones) may well be primarily innate. It's like response to life threatening danger - some people 'panic' others get very calm and resourceful. But it's not about how you *feel*, like it's about what you DO.

Life is about what you DO. I think that's what she may have been getting at.