Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Involuntary Relinquishing of the Self


But I think some intensity of awareness must be lost, since it depends on contrast. And that intensity is impoverishment's aftermath, and blessing: what succeeds temporary darkness, what succeeds the void or the desert, is not the primary gift of the world but the essential secondary gift of knowledge, a sense of the significance of the original gift, the scale of our privilege.

--Louise Gluck, On Impoverishment, Proofs & Theories (Ecco)

No comments: