Monday, July 05, 2010

Thought for the day ...

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
- Jean Cocteau, born on this date in 1889

1 comment:

  1. I am not sure that I can fully embrace Cocteau's outlook on life, though I uncomfortably suspect he is more than a little correct.

    I am reminded of the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) who writes in his autobiography about his lack of faith in astrologers in Tibet, the determiners of the spiritual calendar who spent much time determining the important days in a person's life; in his view, "the most important days of a person's life, those of [a person's] birth and death, cannot be set in consultation with astrologers, [which means that] it is not worth bothering with [fretting over] any of the others."

    It seems to me that attempting to combine the points of view of Cocteau and the Dalai Lama serves as an interesting (if not necessarily comfortably settled upon) starting point for (1) figuring out what is really important and inalterable in life and (2) for figuring out the significance of and gaining a perspective on everything else in life.

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