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Today's
Quotation:
You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have
to come down
again. . . . So why bother in the first place?
Just this: what
is above knows what is below, but what is below does
not
know what is above. One
climbs, one sees. One
descends, one sees no longer but one has seen. There is an
art to conducting oneself in the lower
regions by the memory of
what one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see,
one can at least still
know.
Rene Daumal
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Today's
Meditation:
I
get very sad for people who refuse to take risks, justifying
their refusal by saying that even if they succeed, they'll
just lose whatever success they have and be right back where
they started before long. These people don't allow
themselves to taste success at all, and because they don't
have the memory of any success in their minds, they find no
motivation to try to succeed later. As Rene says
above, the memory of previous successes often drives us to
take other risks in other fields as our lives go on, and
success thus builds on success, making our lives richer and
fuller.
"Why
bother in the first place?" Because we need to
know-- we need to know our possibilities and our limitations,
so that we can build on the former and find ways of
compensating for the latter. And so that we can stand
on the summit and experience the view and the clear air and
the sense of accomplishment that comes from reaching it.
Coming
back down is only a drag if we have the unrealistic
expectation of staying at the summit for very long periods
of time-- that just can't happen. Life is about ups and
downs, peaks and valleys, and many valleys are just as
beautiful as mountaintops-- in fact, they tend to be prettier
because they have more life to them. While mountain
peaks tend to be barren and empty of life, valleys tend to
have running water, plants and trees and flowers, and lots
of animal life.
The
"lower regions" aren't at all negative, except for
someone who wants to live only in the heights. We
should enjoy them just as much as we ever enjoy the peaks.
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