Hi guys! I have noticed there’s a ‘favorite book quote’ contest happening by @mrprofessor. This reminded me of this quote which I really love. I put it up my wall and kept it there for a while, as you can see below. I like to put inspirational or interestingly beautiful quotes on my wall above my desk, so they can unknowingly seep into my head :).
The quote is from The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. I never read the book. I can get free books from my local library, which I bring home and although unfortunately I am not much of a reader, I like interesting quotations, and sometimes I cut out interesting words or parts of sentences, to use as an inspiration for my poems. So that’s what I was doing when I discovered this paragraph.
It is not only a reminder that our ancestors were just as complex as us, which sometimes we tend to ignore or not realize, but it also captures so beautifully how chaotic and unsettled our mind and behaviour can be. We always change, our hearts can’t always settle, we are not static beings, we are not set in stone, we don’t HAVE TO follow a certain path, it’s okay to change our minds, it’s okay to not want anymore what we wanted yesterday. You never know what’s coming your way, that will change your mind and your heart’s desires completely. And that’s okay. We are free spirits, we are free human beings, free to feel and free to want whatever we feel and want. So I like to read this reminder as an affirmation for myself that I don’t have to be a certain way just to please other people or satisfy social expectations.
The actual full paragraph of the quote:
“The Stone Diaries is an ordinary woman's story of her journey through life … Her life is vivid with incident, and yet she feels a sense of powerlessness … her struggle to find a place for herself in her own life is a paradigm of the unsettled decades of our era.” - Summary from www.goodreads.com
I didn't keep the book because I cut it up into pieces, but now I actually got interested in it :).
Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments.
Thank you and love,
Nightcreature :)