Alive Again

It was from Maria Popova’s The Marginalian that I recently got this paragraph below.

Nothing, not one thing, hurts us more — or causes us to hurt others more — than our certainties. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the foregone conclusions with which we cork the fount of possibility are the supreme downfall of our consciousness. They are also the inevitable cost of survival, of navigating a vast and complex reality most of which remains forever beyond our control and comprehension. And yet in our effort to parse the world, we sever ourselves from the full range of its beauty, tensing against the tenderness of life.

Thx Maria Popova (for a style of writing that brings me and so many alive). Thx George Saunders (whom I was aware of from a recent read / listen — Lincoln in the Bardo).

Pretty easy to get excited about such orientation to certainty, and such invitation to more fluid being, isn’t it. I think it is some of my life-long learning that spikes with intensity every now and then, and, lives as a background hum too.

I followed The Marginalian over to A Swim in A Pond in the Rain. Turns out it is a master class on writing, in particular the short story form, that I purchased for listen, and that then had me wanting my fingers on a keyboard soon to stay with insights.

Enjoy the paragraph. The pondering. And the links for exploring.