Monday, March 23, 2009

How You Look at Things

" When you put your mind to such a simple, innocent thing, for example, as making a watercolor, you lose some of the anguish which derives from being a member of a world gone mad. Whether you paint flowers, stars, horses, or angels you acquire respect and admiration for all the elements which go to  make up our universe. You don't call flowers friends, and stars enemies, or horses communists, and angels facists. You accept them for what they are and you praise God that they are what they are. You desist from improving the world or even yourself. You learn to see not what you want to see but what is. And what it is is usually a thousand times better than what might be or ought to be.
    If we could stop tampering with the universe we might find it a far better world than we think it to be. After all, we've only occupied it a few hundred million years, which is to say that we are just getting acquainted with it. And if we continue another billion years there is nothing to assure us that we will eventually know it. In the beginning as in the end, it remains a mystery. And the mystery exists or thrives in every smallest part of the universe. It has nothing to do with size or distance, with grandeur or remoteness. Everything hinges upon how you look at things."

Henry Miller

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive!

Henry Miller

12:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like your post.

2:14 PM  

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