if you believe you die alone it’s because you believe you’ve lived alone

‘then those people are right who say that heaven and hell are only states of mind?’

‘hush,’ he said sternly. ‘do not blaspheme. hell is a state of mine-ye never said a truer word. and every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind-is, in the end, hell. but heaven is not a state of mind. heaven is reality itself. all that is fully real is heavenly. for all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.’

thelittleyu:

“Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling […] The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred.

It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most. 

 Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.”

oh man. yes !

(via danmats)

and so now, i will tell you all the things that i am scared to say. until my ‘i love you’s are well worn and you grow weary of my kisses. until the grandest acts of my affection become commonplace so that i must redefine them again and again. and so then, i can love you newly.

there’s a knowing you can only get by doing. and a knowing you can only have by being.

‎”I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them - it was that promise.” -Thornton Wilder

vulnerability

G. K. Chesterton

http://www.chesterton.org/gkc/essayist/v1n3.gkcessay.htm