And slowly a discussion begins as Morrie has wanted all along – about the effect of silence on human relations. My are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?
I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline.
It’s like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering how to enjoy it. “The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads – none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of – unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn’t get enough.
I’d had books published in foreign languages. I’d had many addresses over the years. But you can touch everything and be connected to nothing.
The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough.
I collected the papers, wrapped them back in the rubber band, and felt a small grief, like a person who discovers, upon returning from a trip, that something has been left behind and there is no way now to retrieve it.
I think people expect too much from marriage today,” he said. “They expect perfection. Every moment should be bliss. That’s TV or movies. But that is not the human experience.
But real commitment? That requires staying power – in faith and in marriage.” And if you don’t commit? I asked. “Your choice. But you miss what’s on the other side.” What’s on the other side? “Ah.” He smiled. “A happiness you cannot find alone.
That was what was missing. Every hurt he’d ever suffered, every ache he’d ever endured – it was all as gone as an expired breath. He could not feel agony. He could not feel sadness. His consciousness felt smoky, wisplike, incapable of anything but calm.
There’s a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need,” Morrie said. “You need food, you want a chocolate sundae. You have to be honest with yourself. You don’t need the latest sports car, you don’t need the biggest house. “The truth is, you don’t get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?” What? “Offering others what you have to give.” You.
Memendam amarah adalah racun. Ia menggerogotimu dari dalam.
Doubt is how you find God.
Kita mengira kebencian adalah senjata untuk melawan orang yang melukai kita, tapi kebencian adalah pisau melengkung.
All caves begin with rain. The rain mixes with gas. The new acidic water eats through rocks, and tiny fractures grow into passageways. Eventually – after many thousands of years – these passageways might create an opening large enough for a man.
C. S. Lewis, the man who wrote the Narnia books you so loved, once said it is easy to trust a rope as long as you’re using it to wrap a box. But when you’re clinging to it over a deadly precipice, it’s something else entirely.
A child is both an anchor and a set of wings.
It takes a special strength to take care of a child, Chika, and a whole different strength to admit you cannot.
But none of us are assured of tomorrow. It’s what we do with today that makes an impact. Chika filled every day. She drank it in. She lived it up. And always, always, she affected someone, most often by making them smile.
Anyone who has sat through that slice of time, when you don’t know something awful and then you do, will confirm that it is literally a bend in your life, and what is critical is what you choose next; because you can view a diagnosis many ways – as a curse, a challenge, a resignation, a test from God.
Everything in this world is music if you can hear it.