"There is so much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for these bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain or pleasure is audible, but pass by whispering on tip-toe. But the worst of it is that it is just this contenment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepresible hatred and nausea. In desperation I have to escape and throw myself on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain. When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. For what I hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity."
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
7 comments:
simply quoting, or something else is up ?!
Profound stuff! I could almost relate to it :P
Cant help being a little bit pro-contentment even though I dont necessarily associate it with mediocrity. I'd say its all relative.
Nevertheless, its nice to have something to fall back on when you're content AND being able to pick up the pieces and move on once you're done. Dont you think?
And as a footnote, I'd like to add a line I heard in a beautiful Korean movie "A moment to remember" recently...
"Sometimes it is a gift to be able to forget easily" :)
Mridul : A little bit of both! ;D
Rinchen : First, thanks for commenting.
My thoughts are, there are things that we are content with and there are others where we need change. It is good if it has not reached a level where you are not losing sleep as you are constantly looking to improve.
Agree with the part of being able to forget easily.
But I think Steppenwolf should decide what he wants, atleast some aspects of his life and go for it!
Hey,
This comment is not about the post but about your title.
Did you know that there's a perfume with it's name as "."?
Just FYI :)
your blog is a perfume ?! yuck !!
and dont give some bull about trying to remove the foul smell of blogosphere :-P
GWBE : Now what kind of smell does that one give? :) weird name for a perfume don't you think, unless there is sthg there that I'm missing.
Mridul : Haven't you heard of the phrase 'stinking rich' :).. like that.
I didnt know there was a perfume called "." Extremely intrigued. Now would that name be inclusive of the quote marks too? :P
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