Winter Trees, #659
Published February 11, 2009
Ok, last one of these (at least for a while).
Here’s a little food for thought about being human:
“But I like the inconveniences.”
“We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.”
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. “You’re welcome,” he said.
- Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World”
I claim all of that too, but sometimes I’d just as soon take a pill, you know?
I recommend getting out and looking up at the sky today. Even if it’s only for fifteen minutes.
Holly Near, “Sky Dances”:
