| This at least seems to me
the main problem for philosophers....How can we
contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet
at home in it? How can this world give us at
once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort
and honour of being our own town?....We need this life
of practical romance; the combination of something
that is strange with something that is secure.
We need to view the world as to combine an idea of
wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be
happy in this wonderland without being once merely
comfortable. --G. K. Chesterton Healthy personality
involves a balance between receptivity and
manipulation, between wonder and action....The unity
of the authentic life is plural; its wisdom lies in
understanding the necesssity for the changing
moments and seasons of life....Wisdom comes, usually
with age, when a man can look back over his years
and realize that there is an economy to the seasons
of life. He sees that the times of strife,
suffering, and waiting which seemed so difficult to
endure were as necessary to the formation of
personality as the times of love, joy, and
ecstasy. To love and accept the self as it is,
is to accept all the moments that formed it.
Ecclesiates: Chapter 3 (Verses 1 through 13) For everything there is a
season, and a time for every purpose under
heaven: What gain has the worker
from his toil? I have seen the business God
has given to the sons of men to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has
also set eternity into man's mind, yet so that man
can't find out what God has done from the beginning
to the end. I know that there is nothing better for
them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long
as they live. Also it is God's gift to man that
every one should eat and drink, and take pleasure in
all his toil.
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