Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
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There is not a flower or bird in sight, only a small screen on which lines are moving, while the child sits almost motionless, pushing at the keyboard with one finger. As a learning environment, it may be mentally rich, but it is perceptually extremely impoverished. No smells or tastes, no wind or bird song (unless the computer is programmed to produce electronic tweets), no connection with soil, water, sunlight, warmth, the actual learning environment is almost autistic in quality, impoverished sensually, emotionally, and socially.
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He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive...
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We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of the drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day ... The dawn were heralded by a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric planet ... But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roof, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droops of heavy and motionless foliage.
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I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
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There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question.
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Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.
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Life is hard, we say. An oyster's life is worse. She lives motionless, soundless, her own cold ugly shape her only dissipation ...
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'Sarah'
My name is Sarah I am but three, My eyes are swollen I cannot see, I must be stupid I must be bad, What else could have made My daddy so mad? I wish I were better I wish I weren’t ugly They maybe mommy Would still want to hug me. I can’t speak at all I can’t do a wrong Or else I’m locked up All the day long. When I’m awake I’m all alone The house is dark My folks aren’t home When my mommy does come I’ll try and be nice, So maybe I’ll get just One whipping tonight. Don’t make a sound! I just heard a car My daddy is back From Charlie’s Bar. I heard him curse My name he calls I press myself Against the wall I try and hide From his evil eyes I’m so afraid now I’m starting to cry He finds me weeping He shouts ugly words, He says it’s my fault That he suffers at work. He slaps me and hits me And yells at me more, I finally get free And I run for the door. He’s already locked it And I start to bawl, He takes me and throws me Against the hard wall. I fall to the floor With my bones nearly broken, And my daddy continues With more bad words spoken. “I’m sorry!”, I scream But its much too late His face has been twisted Into unimaginable hate The hurt and the pain Again and again Oh please God, have mercy! Oh please let it end! And finally he stops And heads for the door, While I lay motionless Sprawled on the floor My name is Sarah And I am but three, Tonight my daddy Murdered me.
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The populace is like the sea motionless in itself, but stirred by every wind, even the lightest breeze.
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He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.
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