28 Sep 2010
Journal
Uplifting Passages
Pessimism is awfully popular these days. Everyone seems gloomy about politics, the environment, their own personal future, etc. (Or am I just projecting my own feelings onto others?) Either way, when I come across an uplifting passage, something that makes me feel good, I feel I should share it. The following are three passages reminding me that humans are magnificent creatures, worthy of praise and awe, as long as we are always striving and moving forward, and remaining devoted to the pursuit of understanding. All three passages refer to “man.” Just ignore that and accept that they apply to all people. The first is from Goethe:
“Whosoever unceasingly strives upward… him we can save.”
The next is from Hamlet:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable, in action, how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…”
And of course Hamlet then rejects all this. But ignore that, it’s fine. The next is my favorite, the one that really refreshed my spirit, even though it is by far the most ancient passage of the three. It is from Sophocles’ Antigone:
“Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, un-wearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.
And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull.
And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when it is hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come; only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes.”
pseudoisaac 