When Toni Morrison said the grandeur of life is the attempt, not the solutionā¦Ā And how she went on to explain that itās about behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances. The power that has, you know? Itās really justĀ the making room for what breathes in the presence of the attempt. In the coming-to-be.Ā
This is the one.
Q: How do you survive whole in a world where weāre all victims of something?ā
Ms. Morrison: Ummm, how do you survive wholeāI canāt do this quickly, for oneāhow can you survive whole and when weāre victims of something, um. You know thatās a nice fat, eastern/western philosophical question about āhow do you get throughā?
Sometimes you donāt survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt, itās not about that solution.
It is about being as fearless as one can, behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. Itās that, that makes it elegant. Good is more interesting. More complex, more demanding.
Evil is silly. It may be horrible but at the same time itās not a compelling idea: itās predictable, it needs a tuxedo, it needs blood, it needs fingernails, itās all that costume, in order to get anybodyās attention.
But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually, if not spiritually and they certainly are spiritually. This is more fascinating job.
We are already born. We are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.ā
