The art of losing things
May. 2nd, 2007 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonRandom quote of the day:
"Life is not something you can keep in your hand. You have to get used to losing things."
—Graham Joyce, The Tooth Fairy
A beautifully written book, almost overpoweringly sensual at times. It's alternately scary, brutal, funny, and lyric, and is essentially a coming-of-age story filtered through potent and visionary imagination. Oh yeah, and sixties England. I loved it, though I had to put it down and rest midway through it.
The quote, of course, has me thinking. That's one of the reasons I love doing the random quote thing: after taking three or four years to work their way through the file, these quotes are new to me again when they spring back out.
It occurs to me that if you are living your life right, you do have to get used to losing things. Sometimes this is a harsh lesson—things are taken from you and you have to reconcile yourself to the loss. Sometimes, though, it can be a positive lesson, and this is where the living your life right part comes in. When you finally learn to let go of outmoded aspects of yourself, things in your life that don't work anymore, that cripple you and keep you "in your place." When you lose your cocksureness and realize that life is often a silent ash fall of burnt up attitudes. Some of them good, some of them not so good.
I won't say, as I started to say, that it's an ash fall of burnt up dreams because dreams are amazingly persistent things, hard to kill.
Unless, of course, they're easy to kill. Then maybe they weren't your true dreams, after all. Maybe you've got to lose those and let them go and find the next thing that makes you tick, that makes you want to face the day. That thing that is as essential as breathing, that defines you. The fire that burns without consuming.
"Life is not something you can keep in your hand. You have to get used to losing things."
—Graham Joyce, The Tooth Fairy
A beautifully written book, almost overpoweringly sensual at times. It's alternately scary, brutal, funny, and lyric, and is essentially a coming-of-age story filtered through potent and visionary imagination. Oh yeah, and sixties England. I loved it, though I had to put it down and rest midway through it.
The quote, of course, has me thinking. That's one of the reasons I love doing the random quote thing: after taking three or four years to work their way through the file, these quotes are new to me again when they spring back out.
It occurs to me that if you are living your life right, you do have to get used to losing things. Sometimes this is a harsh lesson—things are taken from you and you have to reconcile yourself to the loss. Sometimes, though, it can be a positive lesson, and this is where the living your life right part comes in. When you finally learn to let go of outmoded aspects of yourself, things in your life that don't work anymore, that cripple you and keep you "in your place." When you lose your cocksureness and realize that life is often a silent ash fall of burnt up attitudes. Some of them good, some of them not so good.
I won't say, as I started to say, that it's an ash fall of burnt up dreams because dreams are amazingly persistent things, hard to kill.
Unless, of course, they're easy to kill. Then maybe they weren't your true dreams, after all. Maybe you've got to lose those and let them go and find the next thing that makes you tick, that makes you want to face the day. That thing that is as essential as breathing, that defines you. The fire that burns without consuming.
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Date: 2007-05-03 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-03 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-03 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-03 06:07 pm (UTC)