Thursday, January 5, 2012

“But sometimes illumination comes to our rescue at the very moment when all seems lost; we have knocked at every door and they open on nothing until, at last, we stumble unconsciously against the only one through which we can enter the kingdom we have sought in vain a hundred years - and it opens.” --Marcel Proust

9 comments:

  1. This is so perfect for me at this moment. Thank you!

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  2. Nice quote from a writer that I have long if not disdained -- well, avoided!

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  3. the 'aha' moment -- oh wait, that's Oprah. Forgettaboutit.

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  4. Rubye Jack, glad this works for you...and thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.

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  5. Elizabeth, to be honest, I've also avoided Proust. He's on that (long) list of books still to be read. Do we get an extra lifetime in which to accomplish that goal?

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  6. Tara, and Sussah: This Proust piece has been nagging at me all day today, after posting it this morning.

    The truth is, I don't really believe it. I mean, you could go out in a flaming crash long before you come to any "aha" moment. And then there's the interminable day to day of a dull existence.

    All of that stuff.

    Not sure what came over me this morning, and it's January: the darkest of months.

    Perhaps the key word in this quote is "sometimes":

    "...sometimes illumination comes to our rescue...."

    If only it were more reliably present, or available.

    Anyway.

    Onwards to the door!

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  7. To tell you the truth -- I actually read nearly all of Proust in college IN FRENCH because I was a French lit major. I HATED it and him, sickly in bed all the time, complaining and neurotic. There aren't too many places that I'd admit to it, so there you go!

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  8. My belief, and I have not YET read Proust and don't know if any lifetime is quite long enough for that, is that, regardless of how things appear in the moment, they really do unfold in a way that serves us. In fact, serves us better than if we'd gotten immediate gratification, illumination, answers. At least, this is my experience. And life, also in my experience, just keeps on being life, regardless of what we do. We are slowly becoming friends. xo

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