11/12/2004

We are Constantly Invited to Be Who We Are

From Evelyn Rodriguez:

"'Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for--business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. - Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle essay'

What if business was life-supporting, art-supporting, love-supporting, poetry-supporting, learning-supporting, butterfly-supporting.....?

Here's the Thoreau quote I was looking to share when I got diverted via Google (the words constantly and invite are scattered in the full essay above):

'We are constantly invited to be who we are.' - Henry David Thoreau

Accept."