19 posts tagged “books”

#16 Candles: 솔직히 별로일거라 생각했는데 꽤나 귀여운 80년대 하이틴 영화. 보러가길 잘했군.

#Knocked up: this was a cute movie too. i wasn't planning on watching it, but it was on TV, and i sat through the whole thing. i probably should've worked on my readings or paper, but oh well... it was pretty good. i really liked what the father had to say to the guy about life, vision, and planning -- how it doesn't always work out the way you want it to. that's the beauty of life and you gotta roll with it. i can't exactly remember what he said, but it was good. a good life lesson.

#그 길에서 나를 만나다: 어제 밤에 책을 끝냈다. 침대 머리맡에 놓고 매일 밤 조금씩 거의 한달에 걸쳐 읽었다. 책의 마지막 페이지에 이르렀을 때는 내가 꼭 산티아고 목적지에 다다른 듯한 기분이었다. 작가와 함께 긴 여정을 함께한 것 같이 느껴졌달까? 그래서 그가 순례를 마쳤을 때, 성당 광장에 들어섰을 때, 내 가슴이 벅찼다. i enjoyed the book so much, the journey so much that i didn't want it to end. 하지만 그의 여정은 끝이났고 책의 마지막장은 덮어졌다. 너무 아쉬워할 이유는 없다. 나의 여행은 아직 시작조차 하지 않았으니까. 이 책 덕분에 산티아고에 대한 나의 마음은 한껏 기대에 부풀었다. 그게 좋던 나쁘던 상관없다. 나는 언젠가 그 길을 걸을것이고 이 책은 나에게 긍정적인 동기를 부여했기 때문이다. 덧으로 이 책 덕분에 독일 순례자들의 수가 껑충 뛰었단다^-^ --> 뉴욕타임즈

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이 나이에 지금 하고 싶은 일이 무엇인가, 앞으로 무엇을 하고 싶은가- 따위를 곰곰 생각하다보면 영락없이 사춘기 소년으로 돌아간 기분이다. 언제나처럼 미래는 불투명하고, 내 능력은 한없이 작은데 욕심은 크기만 하다. 돈 잘주고 일 재미있고 시간 많고 회사 망할 염려 없는- 산 좋고 물 맑고 정자 좋은 곳이 어디 있간디. 그저 당장은 아직 여기 저기 프로세스를 더 진행하면서 내가 어떤 수준인지를 짚어보는 것만으로도 충분할테지만, 결국 결정을 내려야 하는 시기는 올 것이다. 나는 어떤 판단을 내릴 것인가. 나도 모른다. by가짜집시

#그러고보니 빼빼로데이!

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사랑하는 사람을 잃었을 때 생기는
주체하지 못할만큼의 슬픔과
가슴 속의 빈자리.
그리고,
살아가는 매 순간마다 느껴지는 그것을 어찌하지 못하는
꼬마.

솔직히 꼬마의 행동이 꽤나 annoying했던 적도 많았는데
다 읽고 나니
아....
이해하겠다.
그 마음 알겠다.

얼마나 아프고 멍들었을까.
그 작고 어린 가슴.

상처가 따끔따끔 쓰라리다 못해 너무 아파 온 몸이 먹먹하지 않았을까....
그런 고통을 이해하고 감당해내기엔 너무 어린 나이니까.
솔직히 나이가 무슨 상관이겠어.
어른인 나도 어찌할줄 몰랐을텐데.

그런 상황이 닥쳐오면,
그런 아픔이 몰려오면,
어떻게 대처해야하는지 아는 사람이 있을까?
아무도 모를껄.
정답은 없으니까..

there is no right way to deal.
of course not.

그래.
그게 그 꼬마의 방식이었던거다.
everyone has their own ways of dealing with grief.
but no body should ever have to deal with such incredibly-hard-almost-impossible-to-deal-with kind of situation.
it breaks my heart.
it really does...

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살아있는 동안 사랑하고,
사랑하는 동안 표현하라.
매일 매일,
수백번이고,
수천번이고,
늦기전에,
미루지말고,
아낌없이 말하라.
사랑한다고.
사랑한다고.
기회가 다시 오지 않을지 모르니까..

-- 이 책이 나에게 남겨준 메세지.

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나는
9/11로 인해 친구를 잃었다.

정확히 말하면 9/11 테러때문에 이라크 "전쟁" -- 나는 이것을 절대 전쟁이라고 보지 않지만 그것은 어쨌든 전쟁이라고 불리어지고 있다 -- 이 났고, 군인이었던 내 친구는 그 전쟁에 참가했고 그곳에서 죽었다.

왜?
왜?
왜?

왜 그렇게 죽어야했는지.
생각할 때마다 눈물이 나고 슬프다 못해 화가 치밀어오르는 것을 참을 수가 없다.

나를 더 아프게 했던 것은 친구의 죽음이 실린 인터넷 신문 기사에 달린 악플들.
죽은 사람을 두고 어떻게 그런 말들을 할 수가 있는지 정말 이해할 수 없다.

아프다.
목이 메인다.

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가기 전에 한 번만이라도 연락이 되었더라면 좋았을껄..
잘 다녀오라는 얘기라도 해줬을텐데..
늦었지만 보고싶다. 그리고 사랑한다 친구야.

Marcellin Caillou

그들은 정말로 좋은 친구였다.
그들은 짓궂은 장난을 하며 놀기도 했지만,
또 전혀 놀지 않고도, 전혀 말하지 않고도 같이 있을 수 있었다.
왜냐하면, 그들은 함께 있으면서 전혀 지루한 줄 몰랐기 때문이다.

내가 여러분을 우울하게 만들 생각이었다면,
이제부터 여러분에게 이 두 친구가 자신들의 일에 떠밀려
다시는 만나지 못했다는 이야기를 들려주려 했을 것이다.
사실, 삶이란 대개는 그런 식으로 지나가는 법이기 때문이다.
사람들은 우연히 한 친구를 만나고, 매우 기뻐하며, 몇 가지 계획들도 세운다.
그리고는,
다신 만나지 못한다.
왜냐하면 시간이 없기 때문이고,
일이 너무 많이 때문이며, 서로 너무 멀리 떨어져 살기 때문이다.
혹은 다른 수많은 이유들로.
그러나 마르슬랭과 르네는 다시 만났다.

그들은 토요일과 일요일이 되면,
영원히 성공할 것 같지 않을 (그리고 해롭지도 않을) 사냥을 나갔다.
또 여전히 짓궂은 장난도 하였다.
하지만 그들은 여전히
아무것도 하지 않고
아무 얘기도 하지 않고 있을 수 있었다.
왜냐하면 그들은 함께 있으면서 결코 지루해 하지 않았으니까.

Thank you so much.
You made my day.

:)

이곳은 더이상 낯선 곳이 아니었다.
새로운 세계였다.

떨린다.

막상 던져지면 잘 해냄에도 불구하고 시작 전에는 언제나 이렇게 떨린다.

낯선 곳에 대한 두려움보다는 새로운 세계를 향한 설레임 때문이리라.

또 다시 시작이다.

부딪치자!

즐기자!

그리고,

최선을 다하자-!

• ...but there seemed no point in fighting any of this. These things were permanent...so now I resolved to ride with them...At least I knew now that at some point, the ride always came to an end, and that even at their very worst, they could not kill me.

• This new sensitivity was not always comfortable, because I found that I could hear a kind of crusading aggression all around me in contemporary society. I heard it in Israel, when I listened to the Israelis and Palestinians condemning each other, wholly unable to appreciate each other's position. It was there again when British politicians attacked their opponents with bitter relish, and even in apparently civilized debates between intellectuals and literary critics on the radio. There was an edge of unpleasant self righteousness as people gleefully demolished their opponents. I heard it all the time in London, when even my most liberal friends inveighed wittily -- and often unkindly -- against this or that. I certainly heard it in Mrs. Thatcher. So my study of the Crusades changed me, making me determined always to try to listen to the other side, and at least try to understand where the enemy was coming from. Had the Crusaders done that, a moral catastrophe could have been averted. Studying the Crusades had confirmed me in my conviction that stridently parochial certainty could be lethal, especially in religious matters. We lived in a global age now, and it was dangerous to assume, without question, that "we" had the monopoly of truth and justice. (260-1)

• Yet another door had slammed in my face...Previously, when disaster had struck, I had not allowed myself to respond fully. Indeed, I had been unable to do so...This time I let myself feel my outrage, frustration, and dismay to the full...But how could I move forward? I seemed doomed to fail, fated to spend my entire life on the periphery...I was toiling up this hill one day, weighed down with plastic bags of uninspiring groceries, that an idea came to me, and (again without realizing it) I tuned another corner.(263)
• ...when I had come to an apparent dead end in the past, my life had sometimes taken a turn for the better. "Because I do not hope to turn again," Eliot had reflected in Ash-Wednesday, "consequently I rejoice." (268)

이 표현이 참 마음에 들었다.
Turning another corner.
막다른 골목에 이르러 벽에 부딪혔을 때 멍하니 서 있지말고 코너를 돌자;)

• The great myths show that when you follow somebody else's path, you go astray. The hero has to set off by himself, leaving the old world and the old ways behind. He must venture into the darkness of the unknown, where there is no map and no clear route. He must fight his own monsters, not somebody else's. explore his own labyrinth, and endure his own ordeal before he can find what is missing in his life. Thus transfigured, he (or she) can bring something of value to the world that has been left behind. But if the knight finds himself riding along an already established track, he is simply following in somebody else's footsteps and will not have an adventure. In the words of the Old French text of The Quest of the Holy Grail, if h wants to succeed, he must enter the forest "at a point that he, himself, had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path." The wasteland in the Grail legend is a place where people live inauthentic lives, blindly following the norms of their society and doing only what other people expect. (268)

남들 간다는 길, 남들이 좋다는거 따라가다 자신의 길을 잃지 않기를.
줏대없이 쫓아만가다가는 이것도 저것도 아닌게 될테니까.  

• ...but instead of striking out on my own, I had to follow somebody else's. Instead of striking out on my own, I had conformed to a way of life and modes of thought that had often seemed alien. As a result, I found myself in a wasteland, and inauthentic existence, in which I struggled mightily but fruitlessly to do what I was told..."desiring this man's gift and that man's scope." I had too clear a preconceived idea of what I was supposed to be, and was not open to new possibilities. So again I got lost in the wasteland. (269)

• These were professions that brought fulfillment to other people, but they were not for me. Now circumstances had forced me to find my own track and enter the forest at a point that I myself had chosen, where there was no established path. I cannot pretend, however, that at the time I felt like an intrepid knight, striding heroically into the darkness...I had no idea that I was about to "turn again"...It is only now, after more than a decade of study, that I can understand what happened. (270)

• Hyam Maccoby...had told me that in most traditions, faith was not about belief but about practice. Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, and ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific, or historical reality but because they are life enhancing...Their purpose is to compel us to act in such a way that we bring out our own heroic potential. (270)

• In the course of my studies, I have discovered that the religious quest is not about discovering "the truth" or "the meaning of life" but about living as intensely as possible here and now. The idea is not to latch on to some superhuman personality or to "get to heaven" but to discover how to be fully human - hence the images of the perfect or enlightened man, or the deified human being. Archetypal figures such as Muhammad, the Buddha, and Jesus become icons of fulfilled humanity. God or Nirvana is not an optional extra, tacked on to our human nature. Men and women have a potential for the divine, and are not complete unless they realize it within themselves. A passing Brahmin priest once asked the Buddha whether he was a god, a spirit or an angel None of these, the Buddha replied; "I am awake!"(270-1)

• Thus, the myth of the hero shows that it is psychologically damaging to live in the wasteland. If you slavishly follow somebody else's ideas, you will be impoverished and impaired...Blind obedience and unthinking acceptance of authority figures may make an institution work more smoothly, but the people who live under such a regime will remain in an infantile, dependent state. (271)

• All the traditions tell us, one way or another, that we have to leave behind our inbuilt selfishness, with its greedy fears and cravings. We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao. (279)

• Silence itself had become my teacher...Theology is -- or should be -- a species of poetry, which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way as you might listen to a difficult piece of music. It is no good trying to listen to a late Beethoven quartet or read a sonnet by Rilke at a party. You have to give it your full attention, wait patiently upon it, and make an empty space for it in your mind. (284)

• The religious traditions have all stressed the importance of silence. They have reminded the faithful that these truths are not capable of a simply rational interpretation. Scared texts cannot be perused like a holy encyclopedia, for clear information about the divine. This is not the language of everyday speech or of logical, discursive prose. (285)

• ...I think that I was lucky not to have studied theology or comparative religion at university, where I would have had to write clever papers and sit examinations, get high marks, and aim for a good degree. The rhythm of study would have been wrong -- at least for me. In theology, I am entirely self-taught, and if this makes me an amateur, that need not necessarily be all bad. After all, an amateur is, literally, "one who loves," and I was, day by solitary day, hour by silent hour, falling in love with my subject. (287)

• In every tradition, I was discovering, people turned to art when they tried to express or evoke a religious experience: to painting, music, architecture, dance or poetry. They rarely attempted to define their apprehension of the divine in logical discourse or in the scientific language of hard fact. Like all art, theology is an attempt to express the inexpressible...If you are bent on proving that your own tradition alone is correct, and pour scorn on all other points of view, you are interjecting self and egotism into your study, and the texts will remain closed.(288)

• Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not confined to any one creed, for, he says, "Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah." Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance.
  - Ibn al-Arabi

• Compassion does not, of course, mean to feel pity or to condescend, but to feel with. (290)

• ...the late Canadian scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith...had make his students live according to Muslim law when he was teaching Islamic studies...Because, Cantwell Smith believed, you could not understand the truth of a religion by simply reading about its beliefs. (291)

• To believe or not to believe: that is surely the religious question, is it not? Well...no. To my very great surprise, I was discovering that some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God...Our notion of a personal God is one symbolic way of speaking about the divine, but it cannot contain the far more elusive reality. (291-292)

• But did that mean that we could think what we liked about God? No. Here again, the religious traditions were in unanimous agreement. The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology...

• In killing Muslims and Jews in the name of God, the Crusaders had simply projected their own fear and loathing onto a deity which they had created in their own image and likeness, thereby giving this hatred a seal of absolute approval. A personalized God can easily lead to this type of idolatry, which is why the more thoughtful Jews, Christians, and Muslims insisted that while you could begin by thinking of God as a person, God transcended personality as "he" went beyond all other human categories. (293)

• ...the whole of Western theology had been characterized by an inappropriate reliance upon reason alone, ever since the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rationalism had achieved such spectacular results that empirical reason came to be regarded as the sole path to truth, and Western people started to talk about God as an objective, demonstrable fact like any other. The more intuitive disciplines of mythology and mysticism were discredited. (294)

• As a very early Buddhist poem puts it: "May our loving thoughts fill the whole world; above, below, across -- without limit a boundless goodwill toward the whole world, unrestricted, free of hatred and enmity." We are liberated from personal likes and dislikes that limit our vision, and are able to go beyond ourselves. (296)

• This insight was not confined to Buddhism, however. The late Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that when we put ourselves at the opposite pole of ego, we are in the place where God is. The Golden Rule requires that every time we are tempted to say or do something unpleasant about a rival, an annoying colleague, or a country with which we are at war, we should ask ourselves how we should like this said of or done to ourselves, and refrain. In that moment we would transcend the frightened egotism that often needs to wound or destroy others in order to shore up the sense of ourselves. If we lived in such a way on a daily, hourly basis, we would not only have no time to worry overmuch about whether there was a personal God "out there"; we would achieve constant ecstasy, because we would be ceaselessly going beyond ourselves, our selfishness and greed. If our political leaders took the Golden Rule seriously into account, the world would be a safer place. (296-7)

• The silence in which I live has also opened my ears and eyes to the suffering of the world. In silence, you begin to hear the note of pain that informs so much of the anger and posturing that pervade social and political like. Solitude is also a teacher. (297)

• I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest ways, we find it impossible, as Marshall Hodgson enjoined, to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? (298)

• I learn that ego is at the heart of all pain. When I get beyond this for a few moments, I fell enlarged and enhanced --  just as the Buddha promised. (298)

• In a relationship, you constantly have to go beyond yourself. Each day you have to forgive something, each day you have to put yourself to one side to accommodate your partner. looking after somebody else means that you have to give yourself away. (298)

• ...you must not practice the spirituality of empathy simply in order to get something for yourself. I am sure that this is what Jesus meant when he told people to love their enemies. You have to be prepared to extend your compassionate interest where there is no hope of a return. This is probably what T. S. Eliot meant when he prayed, "Teach us to care and not to care" -- without interjecting yourself into your concern. And abuse feeds back into the Golden Rule. It reminds me what it is like for people in our world who are constantly reviled and misrepresented...It seems that the inner dynamic of all these great religious traditions can work effectively only if you do not close your mind and heart to other human beings. (299-300)

• And yet the very absence I felt so acutely was paradoxically a presence in my life, When you miss somebody very intensely, they are in a sense, with you all the time. They often fill your mind and heart more than they do when they are physically present. (300)

• If we try to hold on to our partial glimpses of the divine, we cut it down to our own size and close our minds. Like it or not, our human experience of anything or anybody is always incomplete: there is usually something that eludes us, some portion of experience that evades our grasp. We used to think that science would answer all our questions and solve all the mysteries, but the more we learn, the more mysterious our world becomes. (302)

• What is vital to all of the traditions, however, is that we have a duty to make the best of the only thing that remains to us -- ourselves. Our task now is to mend our broken world; if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies. (304)

• The September apocalypse was a revelation -- an "unveiling" of a reality that had been there all the time but which we had not seen clearly enough before: we live in one world. (304)

[Section I] Discipline

Problems and Pain

Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult -- once we truly understand and accept it -- then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan...as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.
Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?
What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one...And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.
Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. Is is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. 16

The Sins of the Father

"Do as I say, not as I do" parents
If a child sees his parents day in and day out behaving with self-discipline, restraint, dignity and a capacity to order their own lives, then the child will come to feel in the deepest fibers of his being that this is the way to live...Yet even more important than role modeling is love...When we love something it is of value to us, and when something is of value to us we spend time with it, time enjoying it and time taking care of it....So it is when we love children; we spend time admiring them and caring for them. We give them our time. 22

The feeling of being valuable -- "I am a valuable person" -- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self discipline. 24

Problem-Solving and Time

A ubiquitous and universal defect = It is the hope that problems will go away of their own accord.
Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit. 30

Neuroses and Character Disorders

It is said that "neurotics make themselves miserable; those with character disorders make everyone else miserable." 38

Escape from Freedom

Dedication to Reality

The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world -- the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions -- the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost. 44

While this is obvious, it is something that most people...choose to ignore. They ignore it because our route to reality is not easy. First of all, we are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. They more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading. By the end of middle age most people have given up the effort. They feel certain that their maps are complete and they are no longer interested in new information. It is as if they are tired. Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining and redefining their understanding of the world and what is true. 45

...if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually revise them. The world itself is constantly changing....When we have children to care for, the world looks different from when we have none; when we are raising infants, the world seems different from when we are raising adolescents. When we are poor, the world looks different from when we are rich. We are daily bombarded with new information as to the nature of reality. 45

Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it. and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Sadly, such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place. 46

Openness to Challenge

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged. The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers. Otherwise we live in a closed system. 53

Withholding Truth

A black lie is a statement we make that we know is false. A white lie is a statement we make that is not in itself false but that leaves out a significant part of the truth. The fact that a lie is white does not in itself make it any less of a lie or any more excusable. White lies may be every bit as destructive as black ones. A government that withholds essential information from its people by censorship is no more democratic than one that speaks falsely....White-lying is considered socially acceptable in many of our relationships because "we don't want to hurt people's feelings." Yet we may bemoan the fact that our social relationships are generally superficial. 59

Usually such withholding and lack of openness is rationalized on the basis of a loving desire to protect and shield their children from unnecessary worries. Yet more often than not such "protection" is unsuccessful....The result, then, is not protection but deprivation. The children are deprived of the knowledge they might gain about money, illness, drugs, sex, marriage, their parents, their grandparents and people in general. They are also deprived of the reassurance they might receive if these topics were discussed more openly. Finally, they are deprived of role models of partial honesty, incomplete openness and limited courage. 60

What rules can one follow if one is dedicated to the truth? First, never speak falsehood. Second, bear in mind that the act of withholding the truth is always potentially a lie, and that in each instance in which the truth is withheld a significant moral decision is required. Third, the decision to withhold the truth should never be based on personal needs, such as a need for power, a need to be liked or a need to protect one's map from challenge. Fourth, and conversely, the decision to withhold the truth must always be based entirely upon the needs of the person from whom the truth is being withheld. Fifth, the assessment of another's needs is an act of responsibility which is so complex that it can only be executed wisely when one operates with genuine love for the other. Sixth, the primary factor in the assessment of another's needs is the assessment of tat person's capacity to utilize the truth for his or her own spiritual growth. Finally, in assessing the capacity of another to utilize the truth for personal spiritual growth, it should be borne in mind that our tendency is generally to underestimate rather than overestimate this capacity. 63

....rewards of the difficult life of honesty and dedication to the truth are more than commensurate with the demands. By virtue of the fact that their maps are continually being challenged, open people are continually growing people. Through their openness they can establish and maintain intimate relationships far more effectively than more closed people. Because they never speak falsely they can be secure and proud in the knowledge that they have done nothing to contribute to the confusion of the world, but have served as sources of illumination and clarification. Finally, they are totally free to be. They are not burdened by any need to hide. They do not have to slink around in the shadows. They do not have to construct new lies to hide old ones. They need waste no effort covering tracks or maintaining disguises. And ultimately they find that the energy required for the self-discipline of honesty is far less than the energy required for secretiveness. 63

[Section II] Love

Love Defined

When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion -- through the fact that for that someone (or for our self) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful. 83

....the desire to love is not itself love. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both and intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. 83

Falling in "Love"

Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them. The extension of one's limits requires effort; falling in love is effortless.

The Myth of Romantic Love

....all couples learn that a true acceptance of their own and each other's individuality and separateness is the only foundation upon which a mature marriage can be based and real love can grow. 93

More About Ego Boundaries

....we must be attracted toward, invested in and committed to an object outside of ourselves, beyond the boundaries of self. Psychiatrists call this process of attraction, investment and commitment "cathexis" and say that we "cathect" the beloved object. 94

Dependency

"What you describe is parasitism, not love. When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other." 98

They tolerate loneliness very poorly. Because of their lack of wholeness they have no real sense of identity, and they define themselves solely by their relationships. 99

Cathexis without Love

Love is not simply giving; it is judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging, pushing and pulling in addition to comforting. It is leadership. The word "judicious" means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct; it requires thoughtful and often painful decision making. 111

"Self-Sacrifice"

....loving is a complicated rather than a simple activity, requiring the participation of his entire being -- his head as well as his heart. 112

He had to learn that not giving at the right time was more compassionate than giving at the wrong time, and that fostering independence was more loving than taking care of people who could otherwise take care of themselves. 113

....social sadomasochism, in which people unconsciously desire to hurt and be hurt by each other through their nonsexual interpersonal relations. 114

Whenever we think of ourselves as doing something for someone else, we are in some way denying our own responsibility. Whatever we do is done because we choose to do it, and we make that choice because it is the one that satisfies us the most. Whatever we do for someone else we do because it fulfills a need we have. Parents who say to their children, "You should be grateful for all that we have done for you" are invariably parents who are laking in love to a significant degree. Anyone who genuinely loves knows the pleasure of loving. When we genuinely love we do so because we want to love. We have children because we want to have children, and if we are loving parents, it is because we want to be loving parents. It is true that love involves a change in the self, but this is an extension of the self rather than a sacrifice of the self. As will be discussed again later, genuine love is a self-replenishing activity. Indeed, it is even more; it enlarges rather than diminishes the self; it fills the self rather than depleting it. In a real sense love is as selfish as nonlove....In the case of genuine love the aim is always spiritual growth. In the case of nonlove the aim is always something else. 116

Love is Not a Feeling

The misconception that love is a feeling exists because we confuse cathecting with loving....we may cathect any object, animate or inanimate, with or without a spirit....we have cathected another human being does not mean that we care a whit for that person's spiritual development....the intensity of our cathexes frequently has nothing to do with wisdom or commitment....our cathexes may be fleeting and momentary. 117

Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When we are concerned for someone's spiritual growth, we know that a lack of commitment is likely to be harmful and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively. 118

....the consistent and steadfast caring that can arise only from a capacity for commitment. This does not mean that the therapist always feels like listening to the patient. Commitment means that the therapist listens to the patient, like it or not. It is no different in a marriage. In a constructive marriage, the partners must regularly, routinely and predictably, attend to each other and their relationship no matter how they fell. As has been mentioned, couples sooner or later always fall out of love, and it is at the moment when the mating instinct has run its course that the opportunity for genuine love begins. 118

When love exists it does so with or without cathexis and with or without a loving feeling. It is easier -- indeed, it is fun -- to love with cathexis and the feeling of love. But it is possible to love without cathexis and without loving feelings, and it is in the fulfillment of this possibility that genuine and transcendent love is distinguished from simple cathexis. The key word in this distinction is "will." I have defined love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own and another's spiritual growth. Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. 119

My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to love, toward whom to direct my will to love. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision. 119

The Work of Attention

Love, then, is a form of work or a form of courage. Specifically, it is work or courage directed toward the nurture of our own or another's spiritual growth. 120

I loved him because I perceived him to be a person of great value worth attending to, and I loved myself because I was willing to work on behalf of my growth....Love, as we shall see again and again, is invariably a two-way street, a reciprocal phenomenon whereby the receiver also gives and the giver also receives. 123

At these times what children want from interaction is not communication but simply closeness, and pretend listening will suffice to provide them with the sense of being with that they want. Furthermore, children themselves often like to drift in and out of communication and will be understanding of their parents' selective listening, since they are only selectively communicating. 124

The Risk of Loss

Now we have said that simple cathexis is not love, that love transcends cathexis. This is true, but love requires cathexis for a beginning. We can love only that which in one way or another has importance for us. But with cathexis there is always the risk of loss or rejection. If you move out to another human being, there is always the risk that that person will move away from you, leaving you more painfully alone than you were before. 133

If we can lie with the knowledge that death is our constant companion, traveling on our "left shoulder," then death can become in the words of Don Juan, our "ally," still fearsome but continually a source of wise counsel. With death's counsel, the constant awareness of the limit of our time to live and love, we can always be guided to make the best use of our time and live life to the fullest. 134

The Risk of Independence

Many never take any of these potential enormous leaps, and consequently many do not ever really grow up at all. Despite their outward appearances they remain psychologically still very much the children of their parents, living by hand-me-down values, motivated primarily by their parents' approval and disapproval (even when their parents are long dead and buried), never having dared to truly take their destiny into their own hands. 137

...major changes are acts of self-love. 138

...not only does love for oneself provide the motive for such major changes; it also is the basis for the courage to risk them. 138

The Risk of Commitment

...it is our sense of commitment after the wedding which makes possible the transition from falling in love to genuine love. And it is our commitment after conception which transforms us from biological into psychological parents. 140

She realized that sex was not a matter commitment but one of self-expression and play and exploration and learning and joyful abandonment. Knowing that I would always be available to her if she became bruised, like the good mother she had never had, she was free to allow her sexuality to burst forth. Her frigidity melted. By the time she terminated therapy in the fourth year, Rachel had become a vivacious and openly passionate person who was busily enjoying all that human relationships have to offer. 147

The Risk of Confrontation

Two ways to confront or criticize another human being: 1) the way of arrogance; 2) the way of humility.

To fail to confront when confrontation is required for the nurture of spiritual growth represents a failure to love equally as does thoughtless criticism or condemnation and other forms of active deprivation of caring. 153

No marriage can be judged truly successful unless husband and wife are each other's best critics. The same hold true for friendship. 153

If we want to be heard we must speak in a language the listener can understand and on a level at which the listener is capable of operating. If we are to love we must extend ourselves to adjust our communication to the capacities of our beloved. 154

Love is Disciplined

"Shallow brooks are noisy" and "Still water run deep." 156

While one should not be a salve to one's feelings, self-discipline does not mean the swashing of one's feelings into non-existence....one's feelings are the source of one's energy, we should treat them with respect.  156

...guilt-ridden neurotic so often exerts over his feelings, is equally self destructive. 157

To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spiritual growth is to waste your energy, to cast your seed upon arid ground. 158

There is frequently something pathetic about the individual who has failed to build his family into a loving unit, yet restlessly searches for loving relationships outside the family. The first obligation of a genuinely loving person will always be to his marital and parental relationships. 159

When I genuinely love I am extending myself, and when I am extending myself I am growing. The more I love, the longer I love, the larger I become. Genuine love is self-replenishing. 160

Love is Separateness

...the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved. The genuine lover always perceives the beloved as someone who has a totally separate identity....the genuine lover always respects and even encourages this separateness and the unique individuality of the beloved. 160

...the vast majority of parents fail in some degree to adequately recognize or fully appreciate the unique individuality or  "otherness" of their children. 163

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

"The purpose and function of Lily," I responded, "is to grow to be the most of which she is capable, not for my benefit but for her own and to the glory of God." 166

...I draw the analogy between marriage and a base camp for mountain climbing. If one wants to climb mountains one must have a good base camp, a place where there are shelters and provisions, where one may receive nurture and rest before one ventures forth again to seek another summit. Successful mountain climbers know that they must spend at least as much time, if not more, in tending to their base camp as they actually do in climbing mountains, for their survival is dependent upon their seeing to t that their base camp is sturdily constructed and well stocked. 167

[Section III] Growth and Religion

World Views and Religion

...our understanding of what life is all about....is our religion. Since everyone has some understanding -- some world view, no matter how limited or primitive or inaccurate -- everyone has a religion. This fact, not widely recognized, is of the utmost importance: everyone has a religion. 185

We have a situation in which human beings, who must deal with each other, have vastly different views as to the nature of reality, yet each one believes his or her own view to be the correct one since it is based on the microcosm of personal experience. 192

The Baby and the Bath Water

There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions. Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification. Dogmatism. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Self-righteousness. Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition. Fear. Conformity. Morbid guilt. Insanity. The list is almost endless. But  is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God? 222

"collective unconscious ," in which we inherit the wisdom of the experience of our ancestors without ourselves having the personal experience. 252

How People Change by Allen Wheelis

Those who achieve growth not only enjoy the fruits of growth but give the same fruits to the world. Evolving as individuals, we carry humanity on our backs. And so humanity evolves. 267

...the impediments to spiritual growth. Ultimately there is only the one impediment, and that is laziness. 271

the ubiquitous nature of laziness 272

The debate between the serpent and God is symbolic of the dialogue between good and evil which can and should occur within the minds of human beings....So original sin does exist; it is our laziness. 273

A major form that laziness takes is fear. 274

Ordinary laziness is nonlove; evil is antilove.

Our personal involvement in the fight against evil in the world is one of the ways we grow. 279

...what is the capacity of spiritual power if not the capacity to coerce? It is the capacity to make decisions with maximum awareness. It is consciousness.

Most people most of the time make decisions with little awareness of what they are doing. They take action with little understanding of their own motives and without beginning to know the ramifications of their choices....

We are often most in the dark when we are the most certain, and the most enlightened when we are the most confused. 285

The one who regards his division simply and solely as a unit of strategy may sleep easily after having made his decision. But for the other, with his awareness of each of the lives of the men under his command, the decision will be agonizing. We are all generals. Whatever action we take may influence the course of civilization. The decision whether to praise or punish a single child may have vast consequences. It is easy to act with the awareness of limited data and let the chips fall as they may. The greater our awareness, however, the more and more data we must assimilate and integrate into our decision-making. The more we know, the more complex decisions become. Yet the more and more we know, the more it begins to become possible to predict just where the chips will fall. 287

Serendipity was defined as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." Buddha found enlightenment only when he stopped seeking for it -- when he let it come to him. On the other hand, who can doubt that enlightenment came to him precisely because he had devoted at least sixteen years of his life seeking it, sixteen years in preparation? He had to both seek for it and not seek for it. 308

An informal guide to writing nonfiction

[Part 1]
1. The Transaction

• For ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not his subject, but who he is.
• Personal Transaction = the heart of good nonfiction writing
• Most important qualities = humanity and warmth

2. Simplicity

• Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important.
• But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
• "I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert."
  - Thoreau's Walden
• Clear thinking becomes clear writing.
• Tighter, stronger and more precise.
• What am I trying to say, Have I said it?
• Select from the surfeit of words the few that most precisely fit what they want to say. Choose one.
• Take superfluous words away, leaving what is organic and strong.

3. Clutter

• Clutter is the laborious phrase which has pushed out the short word that means the same thing.
• "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible....Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
  - George Orwell's Politics and the English Language

4. Style

• Do not garnish your prose -- you'll lose whatever it is that makes you unique.
• Be yourself.
• A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is, after all, a personal transaction between two people, even if it is conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity. Therefore I almost always urge people to write in the first person -- to use "I" and "me" and "we" and "us."
• Good writers are always visible just behind their words.
• Believe in your own identity and your own opinions.
• Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and your might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

5. The Audience

• Who am I writing for? It is a fundamental question and it has a fundamental answer: you are writing for yourself.
• Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience -- every reader is a different person.
• Don't worry about whether the reader will "get it" if you indulge a sudden impulse for humor or nonsense. If it amuses you in the act of writing, put it in.
• How can you think carefully about not losing the reader and still be so carefree about his opinion that you will be yourself?
  1) work hard to master the tools.
  2) Just as it takes time to find yourself as a person, it takes time to find yourself as a stylist, and even then, inevitably, your style will change as your grow older.
  
• Whatever your age, be yourself when your write.

6. Words

• Cheap words, made-up words and cliches
• Develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning.
• Readers reads with their eyes. But actually they hear what they are reading -- in their inner ear.
• Consider sound and rhythm -- reverse the order of sentence, substitute a word for freshness.
• An occasional short sentence can carry a tremendous punch.

7. Usage

• Words need to express what they express.
  *to help the language grow by welcoming any immigrant that will bring strength or color.

[Part 2]

8. Unity

• You learn to write by writing.
• Before you struggle with the lead you make certain decisions about what tone you want to adopt. Get your unities straight.
  1) Unity of pronoun
  2) Unity of tense
  3) Unity of mood
• Writer must control the material (material shouldn't control the writer).
• Some basic questions you must ask before you start:
  1) In what capacity am I going to address the reader? (Reporter? Provider of info? Average man or woman?)
  2) What pronoun and tense am I going to use?
  3) What style? (Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?)
  4) What attitude am I going to take toward the material? (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?)
  5) How much do I want to cover?
  6) What one point do I really want to make? (Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he didn't have before)
• Trust your material if it is taking you into terrain that you didn't intend to enter but where the vibrations are good. Adjust your style and your mood accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you reach. Don't ever become the prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of blueprints -- it is too subjective a process, too full of surprises.

9. The Lead

• Progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he is safely hooked.
• Take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph -- it is the crucial springboard to the next paragraph.
• You should always collect more material than you will eventually use. Look for your material everywhere, not just by reading the obvious sources and interviewing the obvious people.

10. The Ending

• Article that doesn't stop at its proper stopping place is suddenly a drag and therefore, ultimately, a failure.
• The perfect ending should take the reader slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right to him.
• When you are ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the points that you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

11. The Interview

• Take heart. You will find the solution if you look for the human element.

12. Writing about a Place

13. Bits & Pieces

VERBS

• Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using passive verb.

ADVERBS

• Most adverbs are unnecessary.
• You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you choose a verb that has a precise meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same meaning.

ADJECTIVES

• Most adjectives are also unnecessary.
• Make your adjectives do work that needs to be done.

LITTLE QUALIFIERS

• Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little tumidity. Good writing is lean and confident.

PUNCTUATION

• Period - most writers don't reach it soon enough.
• Exclamation Point - Don't use it unless you must to achieve a certain effect.
• Semicolon - rely on the period and the dash.
• Dash - 1) amplify or justify in the second part of the sentence a though that your have stated in the first part. 2) set apart a parenthetical thought within a longer sentence. An explanatory detail that might otherwise have had to go into a separate sentence is dispatched along the way.
• Colon - quotation, itemized list.

MOOD CHANGERS

• It's okay to start with "but" when you're shifting direction -- there is no stronger word at the start. 

CONTRACTIONS

• Your style will be warmer and truer to your personality if you use contractions like "I'll" and "won't" when they fit comfortably into what you're writing.
• Avoid "I'd" -- it can mean both "I had" and "I would."

OVERSTATEMENT

• Don't overstate.
• Let the humor sneak up so that we hardly hear it coming.

CREDIBILITY

• Don't inflate. Just one bogus statement will make everything you write be thereafter will be suspect.

CONCEPT NOUNS

• Nouns that express a concept are commonly used in bad writing instead of verbs that tell what somebody did.
• Get people doing things

CREEPING NOUNISM

• Stringing two or three nouns together. Choose one noun.

SEXISM

• The "he-she" pronoun -- 그냥 알아서 잘 처리해야..;;

PARAGRAPHS

• Keep it short.

WRITING IS NOT A CONTEST

• Every writer is starting from a different point and is bound for a different destination.
• Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Ultimately your only contest is with yourself.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

• Stay alert to the currents around you.

DICTATION

• Dictated sentences tend to be pompous, sloppy and redundant. 

THE HUMAN CONDITION

14. Science Writing and Technical Writing

• Linear sequence.
• You can't assume that people know what you think any boob knows.
• Describing how a process works is valuable for two reasons.
  1) it forces you to make sure that you know how it works.
  2) it forces you to make sure that the reader will understand it as clearly as you do.
• Add human element -- one obvious is yourself. use your own experience to connect the reader to some mechanism that also touches his life.
• Don't be scared of the subject -- be relaxed and have a good time.

15. Writing in Your Job

• Just because people work for an institution they don't have to write like one. Institutions can be warmed up.
• If you work for an institution, whatever your job, whatever your level, be yourself when you write. You will stand out as a real person among the robots.

16. Sports

• Values to look for: people, places, the link between past and present, the tug of the future.
• Observe closely.
• Hang around the track and the paddock, the ball park and the rink.
• Interview in depth.
• Listen to old-timers.
• Ponder the changes.
• Write well.

17. Criticism

• critic vs. reviewer
• Critic should love the medium that he is reviewing. If you think movies are dumb, don't write about them. The reader deserves a lifelong movie buff who will bring with him a reservoir of knowledge, passion and prejudice.
• Don't give away too much plot.
• Generate a provocative idea and to throw it onto the page where your fellow scholars can savor it.
• Criticism at its best = stylish, allusive, disturbing
• Critics should always be among the first to notify us when the truths that we hold to be self-evident cease to be true.

18. Humor

• One Catch-22 or Dr. Strangelove is more powerful than all the books and movies that try to show war "as it is." They are two works of comic imagination, but they are still the standard points of reference for anyone trying to warn us about the military mentality that could blow us all up tomorrow. Joseph Heller and Stanley Kubrick heightened the truth about war just enough to catch its essential lunacy, and we recognize it as lunacy. The joke is no joke.
• Several principles for the writer of humor:
  Master the craft of writing good "straight" English; humorists from Mark Twain to Russell Baker are, first of all, superb writers. Don't search high and low for the outlandish and scorn what seems too ordinary; you will touch more chords by finding what is funny in what you know to be true. Finally, don't strain for laughs; humor is built on surprise, and you can surprise the reader only so often.

탐정추리 faction은 다빈치 코드로 충분하다. 이런 스타일 별로 좋아하지 않음. ㅎㅎ;;
그래도 사라진 유적/미술품과 그 배후에 관한 이야기는 굉장히 흥미로웠다 -- 실제로 호박방은 WWII이후에 자취를 감추었고 지금까지 행방이 묘연함.

가끔 신문에 도난 당한 작품들에 대한 기사가 나오는데 그런 작품들은 결국 누구 손에 들어가는걸까? 사라진 그림들이 다시 세상의 빛을 볼 날이 올까? 그리고 훔쳐달라고 청탁을 했건 black market에서 사들였건 그렇게 큰 돈을 주고 미술품을 사는 사람들은 누구인지 궁금하다 -- 성 같은 저택 비밀방에 모셔놓고 혼자 보며 흐뭇해할 그들은 욕심쟁이, 우후훗>_<;;;; 도대체 누구네 집 벽에 걸려있거냐구. 근데 솔직히 쫌 부럽다. 보고싶을 때 언제든지 볼 수 있잖아. 미술관까지 안 가도 되고, 사람들에 치이지 않아도 되고.. 울 집에 가져오고 싶은 그림 두 점: Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer 그리고 Rachel Ruysch's Flowers in a Glass Vase. 직접 보니까 너무 좋드라.. 매일매일, 하루 죙일 보고싶을만큼..ㅜ_ㅜ

영화에나 있을 법한 이야기는 실제로 벌어진다. 드라마보다 드라마틱한 세상이니깐..

• 그날의 수업은 전체적으로 산만한 분위기였다. 담임은 지나치게 녀석을 의식하고 있음이 분명했다. 수시로 녀석에게 시선을 던지면서 언더스탠을 연발하고 있었다. 그러나 녀석의 표정은 언제나 모른다스탠이었다. 14

• 수업이 모두 끝나자 우리는 초가을 순금빛 햇살을 한 입씩 베어물고 왁자지껄 교문 쪽으로 내달아가고 있었다. 14-15
• 은백양나무는 바람이 불지 않아도 은백색 이파리들을 끊임없이 나부끼면서 햇빛을 털어낸다. 66

• "민주주의 국가에서 개인의 자유와 인권을 이런 식으로 침해하셔도 되는 겁니까."
  "거듭 사죄를 드리겠습니다. 하지만 우리 나라는 아직까지 민주주의를 표방하는 수준에 머물러 있는 실정이지 민주주의를 실천하는 수준에 도달해 있는 실정은 아니라고 봅니다..."
  조선생은 갈피를 잡을 수가 없었다. 여자가 유연한 화법을 구사하면 안도감에 사로잡히고 여자가 강경한 화법을 구사하면 불안감에 사로잡히는 심경의 변화만 거듭되고 있었다. 33
  
• 한국은 정치적으로나 사회적으로 많은 변화를 보이고 있었다. 적어도 표면적으로는 독재정치가 종식되고 민주정치가 태동하는 분위기였다. 거리에는 생동감이 넘치고 있었다. 하지만 구시대의 악습들은 아직 그대로 남아 있었다. 탐관오리들도 그대로 남아 있었고 부정부패들도 그대로 남아 있었다. 85
  
• 오래 전부터 대학가에는 정치음모설이 나돌고 있었다. 지배계급이 일반대중을 섹스와 스포츠와 스크린에 중독시켜 정치적 사회적 불감증에 걸리도록 유도하고 있다는 주장이었다. 정부는 비록 가난하게 살더라도 인간답게 살고 싶어하는 사람들의 소망을 외면해 버리고 짐승처럼 살더라도 인간답게 살고 싶어하는 사람들의 욕망을 감싸안았다...그러나 다행스럽게도 한국경제는 국제적인 상승기류를 타고 한동안 눈부신 발전을 거듭했다. 눈부신 발전을 거듭하면서 도덕불감증과 양심불감증이 풍토병으로 자리를 잡기 시작했다. 200
  
• 당시에도 대한민국은 민주공화국이라고 헌법 제 1조에 명기되어 있었다. 그러나 민주공화국에는 민주주의가 없었다. 295

민주주의 민주주의 외치지만 냉정하게 말해서 우리나라는 아직이다 -- 2학년 때까지만해도 politics major이었던 나는 에쎄이 때문에 교수님과 종종 이야기를 나누곤 했다. 어느 날은 이야기가 한국 정치 시스템과 재벌그룹쪽으로 흘렀는데 그 때 교수님이 한국은 democratic country가 아니라고 말해서 내가 (겉으론 표현하지 않았지만;;) 무지 기분이 나빴던적이 있다. 그러나 지금은 그 분이 어떤 의미에서 그런 얘기를 했는지 이해한다.  
문민정부 시작한지 이제 겨우 15년. 사춘기 소년이고 갈 길이 멀다.
대한민국은 지금 성장통--표면적으로만이 아니라 진정한 민주주의 국가로 거듭나기 위해서는 꼭 필요한--을 겪고 있다. 

• 하지만 한쪽 눈으로 바라보아도 저물녘 돌담길로 숨어드는 굴뚝새는 검은색이고 한쪽 눈으로 바라보아도 한밤중 논둑길에 피어 있는 달맞이꽃은 노란색이다. 한쪽 눈으로 바라보아도 소나무에는 소가 열리지 않고 한쪽 눈으로 바라보아도 개머리에는 개뿔이 돋지 않는다. 육안으로 포착할 수 있는 것들이 모두 진체(眞體)가 아니거늘 한쪽 눈으로 본다고 무엇이 달라지며 양쪽 눈으로 본다고 무엇이 달라지겠는가. 53

• 특히 이모는 한국에서 대학을 졸업하고 다시 미국에 있는 대학에 편입해서 석사학위까지 받은 경력을 가지고 있었다. 하지만 이모는 미국이라는 나라를 별로 좋아하지 않았다. 철면피한 배금주의. 습관화된 인종차별. 가당찮은 우월의식. 무분별한 개방정책. 이모는 그것들을 싸잡아 망치근성이라고 불렀다. 약소민족들은 망치와 손을 잡으면 번영과 우호가 보장되는 줄로 알고 있지만 망치와 손을 잡은 약소민족들치고 미풍양속과 전통문화가 박살나지 않은 나라가 없다는 것이었다. 한국이 그 대표적인 희생양이라는 것이었다. 이모는 미국을 한자어로 표기할 때 반드시 미혹할 미(迷)자를 써서 미국(迷國)이라고 표기했다. 미국은 아름다울 미(美) 자를 갖다붙이기에 과분한 나라라는 것이었다. 54

• 인간은 의식주에 관계된 모든 물건들을 자연에서 훔쳐다 쓰고 있었다. 어떤 물건이든지 인간이 절대적 소유권을 주장하는 것은 타당치 않다는 생각이었다. 59
  
• 자신의 안위를 위해서라면 종족의 목숨을 초개처럼 수장시키면서 살아온 인간이 종족의 안위를 위해서라면 자신의 목숨을 초개처럼 수장시키면서 살아온 레밍을 과연 자신들보다 하등한 동물로 평가 할 수 있을까. 128
  
• "과학을 통해서든 종교를 통해서든 만물을 사랑하는 마음만 간직할 수 있다면 인생은 그 한 가지만으로도 살아갈 가치가 있습지요." 141
  
• 무덥던 지난 여름 바깥에서 그토록 시끄럽게 울어대던 매미들은 모두 어디로 갔을까. 도시에서 울어대는 매미들은 시골에서 울어대는 매미들보다 몇 배나 성량이 높다는 전문가들의 연구발표가 있었다. 도시의 소음에 자신들의 존재를 알리는 소리가 파묻히지 않도록 발악적으로 성량을 높이고 있다는 설명이었다. 인간이 영악해지면 자연도 그만큼 영악해진다. 근년에는 겨울에도 죽지 않고 아파트에서 인간들고 동거를 하는 모기들까지 생겼다. 148
  
• 인간들은 기본적으로 예지력이나 투시력이나 텔레파시를 이용하는 방법을 알고 있었다. 과학이 모든 분야를 진보시키지는 않는다. 때로눈 어떤 분야를 퇴보시키는 역할도 담당한다. 160
  
• 인간은 다른 생명체들을 잡아먹어야만 생존이 유지되는 악역을 담당한 채 이백만 년 동안이나 지구라는 무대를 장악하고 있다. 인간은 물질적인 면에서는 끊임없이 진화를 계속하고 있지만 정신적인 면에서는 끊임없이 퇴화를 계속하고 있다. 195
  
• 아무리 비천한 미물이라도 애정 어린 눈길로 바라보면 인간과 동일한 존재적 가치를 지니고 있음을 깨닫게 된다...293

인간의 오만방자함이 밑도 끝도 없구나.
수직관계가 아니라 수평의 관계인데 인간은 세상의 모든 만물 위에 군림하고 있는양 행동하고 있다...
(제발 한반도 대운하 절대 안돼. 내가 보기에는 대운하가 소고기보다 더 심각하다...) 

• 당시 대통령은 어깨에 별을 몇 개씩 붙이고 장병들을 통솔하던 군인 출신으로 학생운동에 대해서는 시종일관 강경책을 고수하고 있었다. 대통령은 자신이 국가와 민족을 패망의 위기 속에서 구출했다는 착각 속에 빠져 있었다. 그러나 우리가 보기에는 그가 국가와 미족을 패망의 위기 속에 빠뜨리고 있었다. 64

착각도 유분수,

• "무슨 일로 그토록 언성을 높이십니까."
  "음식에 바퀴벌레가 빠져 있잖소."
  "사람을 잡아먹는 악어나 상어가 빠져 있는 것도 아닌데 손님은 놀라움이 너무 지나치신 거 같습니다."
  "당신 지금 열받은 손님하고 농담 따먹기 하자는 거요."
  "그럴 리가 있겠습니까. 단지 지구상에는 인간만 살고 있지 않으니까 때로는 음식에 바퀴벌레가 빠질 수도 있다는 얘깁니다. 대단치도 않은 일에 손님께서 너무 언성을 높이시니까 드리는 말씀이지요."
  "음식에 바퀴벌레가 빠져 있는데 대단치도 않은 일이라니 당신 도대체 여기가 어느 나라인 줄 알고 음식점을 차렸소."
  "저는 청각신경이 예민해서 조용히 말씀하셔도 잘 알아듣습니다. 손님께서는 텔레비전도 안 보십니까. 요즘은 선진대국에도 다양한 곤충들을 영양식으로 개발해서 호황을 누리는 음식점들이 늘어나고 있다는 소문입니다."
  "이거 살다보니 별놈의 음식점을 다 구경하겠군."
  "손님께서는 잘 모르시는군요. 비행시에나 보행시에 음식그릇에 추락하거나 실족하지 않도록 곤충들을 철저하게 교육시킬 수 있는 음식점이 아직 대한민국에는 존재하지 않습니다. 드시기 싫으면 그냥 가시면 되지 언성은 왜 높이시냔 말입니다. 누가 억지로 드시라고 강요했습니까."
  "최소한 정중하게 사과라도 하셔야 되는 거 아닙니까."
  "다른 손님들을 모조리 쫓아버리셨는데 주인으로서 사과할 기분이 나겠습니까." 313-314

주객전도도 유분수.

• "저 자식은 전교생의 구토촉진을 위해서 날마다 자가용을 몰고 다니는 걸 거야." 78

• 교장선생님의 별명은 파스였다. 신경통이나 타박상에 붙이는 파스가 아니었다. 파리가 스키를 탄다는 말을 줄여서 만들어낸 파스였다. 교장선생님은 대머리였다. 271 

• "그래 싼똥아. 천도리 촌구석에서 인물났다.. 하지만 지금은 짱깨들 글자를 많이 아는 사람이 출세하는 시대가 아니라 양놈들 글자를 많이 아는 사람이 출세하는 시대야." 274 
• 천도리 촌구석은 급우들 모두의 열등요소로 자리잡고 있었다. 급우들은 지독한 도시병에 걸려 있었다. 천도리 촌구석에서 태어나 천도리 촌구석에서 살다가 천도리 촌구석에서 죽겠다는 녀석은 아무도 없었다. 대한민국은 도시공화국이었다. 도시를 위해서 치안이 존재하고 도시를 위해서 법률이 존재하는 나라였다. 도시를 위해서 노동이 존재하고 도시를 위해서 의무가 존재하는 나라였다. 도시는 황홀지경이었고 지상천국이었다. 274
• 오로지 도시에 대한 환상만이 급우들의 의식을 사로잡고 있었다. 275
• 도시에 살고 있는 사람들은 인간에게 생존을 의지하고 시골에 살고 있는 사람들은 자연에게 생존을 의지한다. 송을태의 눈에는 도시에 살고 있는 사람들의 생존이 시골에 살고 있는 사람들의 생존보다 몇 배나 위태롭고 허술해 보인다. 317 

참 신기해.
어느 나라에 가던지 '도시'는 한결같이 바쁘고, 사람도 많고, 뭐랄까 그냥 모두 다 분위기가 회색빛으로 비슷비슷한 것 같아 -- 역으로 시골도 어느 나라던 푸른 초록 빛 분위기가 비슷비슷하다고 말할 수 있겠구나. 삶의 속도는 도시에 비해 느리고 여유롭고... 도시는 도시대로의 매력이 있고, 시골은 시골만의 매력이 분명히 있는데, 왠지 도시의 세련됨에 시골의 수더분한 기가 팍 죽어버린 것 같지 않아? 사람들도 모두 도시만 동경하는 것 같고.. 아무리 앞만보고 뛰어가는 바쁜 도시 속 생활이라도 가끔은 멈춰서 숨을 돌리고 주변을 둘러볼 수 있는 여유를 가졌으면 좋겠어.

• "나는 명품을 타고 다니는 사람들은 별로 존경스럽지 않아." 15

• 세인들의 머리 속에는 망각이라는 이름의 벌레들이 살고 있다. 망각이라는 이름의 벌레들은 기억을 파먹고 살아간다. 89

• ...그러나 대다수의 사람들은 자신이 눈으로 직접 목격하지 않으면 올챙이가 커서 개구리가 된다는 사실조차도 믿으려 들지 않는다. 남들이 한결같이 그렇게 말하기 때문에 수긍은 하더라도 내심으로는 좀처럼 의심을 떨쳐버리지 못하는 것이다. 162

• 미평시의 젊은이들만 하더라도 개천절보다 발렌타인데이에 더 지대한 관심을 보이고 있었으며 광복절보다 화이트데이에 더 지대한 관심을 보이고 있었다. 대도시들은 두말 할 나위가 없없다. 발렌타인데이나 화이트데이가 임박해 오면 유명 백화점이나 제과회사들은 각종 이벤트로 젊은이들을 현혹하기에 여념이 없었다. 254 

• "어떤 일이든지 땀 흘리지 않고 성적이 오르기를 바란다면 그놈은 프로가 아닙니다. 남들하고 똑같은 차림새에 남들하고 똑같은 생각으로 살아가면 프로세계에서는 절대로 살아남을 수가 없어요." 321

• "...인격적인 완성도를 따진다면 아무리 두뇌 속에 많은 지식을 소장하고 있는 학자라도 가슴 속에 한가지 깨달음을 소장하고 있는 범부를 따를 수가 없겠지요...한마디로 말씀드리자면 많이 아는 놈 백 명보다 많이 깨달은 놈 한 명이 세상을 더 평화롭게 만든다는 겁니다." 19

• 처음부터 끝까지 갱들이 개석을 향해 총구를 들이대고 최신형 기관단총을 난사하는 영화였다. 아무런 감동도 느낄 수가 없었다. 인명은 재천이 아니라 재총이라는 생각으로 만들어진 영화 같았다...감동이 없는 영화는 기억 속에 오래 머무르지 않는다. 이필우가 차를 몰고 시내를 몇 바퀴 도는 동안에 영화는 저절로 기억 속에서 전명 삭제 되었다. 30

• 어떤 채널에서는 저명인사들의 대담을 내보내고 있었고 어떤 채널에서는 인기가수들의 노래를 내보내고 있었다. 저명인사들은 진지한 표정으로 사회의 문제점을 지적하고 있었으나 정작 자신들의 문제점은 모르고 있었으며 인기가수들은 열정적인 동작으로 무대를 누비고 있었으나 시종일관 립싱크로 대중들을 기만하고 있었다. 33

• "외부적인 조건으로 맺어진 사람들은 평생타인으로 살아가는 경우가 많고 내면적인 조건으로 맺어진 사람들은 천생연분으로 살아가는 경우가 많지요." 59

• 하객들은 그리 많지 않았다. 그러나 형식적으로 참석한 사람은 거의 없었고 모두가 진심으로 축하해 주기 위해서 참석한 사람들뿐이었다. 76

• 나연이는 시험으로 인간의 우열을 측정하는 방식이 빨리 종식되어야한다는 견해를 가지고 있었다. 시험은 지극히 부분적이고 일시적인 능력밖에는 측정할 수 없기 때문에 학생들의 미래에 대한 잠재적 능력을 너무 일찍 말살시켜 버린다는 주장이었다. 89

• 언제나 적당한 거리를 유지하면서 급우들을 대했다. 그러나 절대로 오만하거나 냉정한 성격은 아니었다. 다만 함부로 대할 수 없는 차분함과 고아함이 언제나 나연이의 주위를 감싸고 있었다. 91

• 누구나 아플 때는 외로움을 느낀다. 누구나 외로움을 느낄 때는 기다림을 배운다. 그리고 누구나 기다림을 배울 때는 마음의 문을 열어둔다. 141

• 대한민국에서는 아무리 재능이 범털이라도 가방끈이 짧으면 개털 취급을 받는다. 저 복면 쓴 놈의 학력이 중졸만 아니었어도 벌써 오래 전에 댄스계의 황제로 대접받았을 거다. 하지만 대한민국의 꼴통들은 가방끈이 아무리 짧아도 진흙 속에 피는 연꽃이 얼마나 눈부신가를 숙고하지 않는다. 219

• "저도 젊었을 때는 종교를 나약한 사람들의 도피처 정도로만 생각했었지요. 나이가 들어가면서 모든 인간들이 거대한 운명의 그물에 갇혀 있는 척추동물에 불과하다는 사실을 깨닫기 시작했지요." 226

• 세인들은 지피지기(知彼知己)면 백전백승(百戰百勝)이라는 말을 자주 써먹는다. 손자(孫子)의 모공편(謨攻篇)에 나오는 말이다. 그러나 모공편에는 지피지기면 백전불태(百戰不殆)라고 명기되어 있다. 상대를 알고 나를 알면 백 번을 싸워도 위태롭지 않다는 말이다. 손자는 결코 백전백승을 최선책으로 삼지는 않았다. 백전백승은 싸움이 불가피할 때 결과적으로 얻어지는 차선책이다. 싸움에는 언제나 위태로움이 따른다. 그래서 손자는 싸우지 않고 적을 굴복시키는 계략을 최선책으로 삼았다. 228-229

• "예술이 밥 먹여줍니까."
  얼마나 몰지각한 질문인가. 그러나 현실은 이따금 거만한 표정으로 예술가들에게 몰지각한 질문을 던지는 소치를 부끄러워하지 않는다. 물론 인간은 살아가기 위해 반드시 밥이 필요한 동물이다. 그러나 인간은 결코 밥을 먹기 위해 살아가는 동물이 아니다. 인간은 육체적인 동물이면서도 정신적인 동물이다. 육체적인 양식을 필요로 할 때도 있지만 정신적인 양식을 필요로 할 때도 있다. 어느 한쪽이라도 공급을 끊어버리면 인간은 죽음에 이르게 된다. 예술은 분명히 정신적인 양식이다.
  밥을 먹지 않으면 육신이 죽어버리지만 예술을 먹지 않으면 영혼이 죽어버린다. 하지만 무지몽매한 현실은 영혼을 중시하지 않는다. 231

• 요즘은 모차르트가 다방면에서 돈벌이로 이용되고 있었따. 모차르트 음악을 간질치료에 이용해서 돈을 버는 의사도 있었고 모차르트 음악을 태아교육에 이용해서 돈을 버는 단체도 있었다. 모차르트라는 간판을 내걸고 학습지를 팔아먹는 회사도 있었고 모차르트라는 상표를 내걸고 오락기를 팔아먹는 회사도 있었다. 그러나 정작 모차르트가 한국에서 살았따면 울화통이 터지거나 굶주림에 찌들어서 틀림없이 십 년 정도는 더 앞당겨 요절해 버리고 말았을 것이다. 235

• ...자신의 인생을 스스로 창조하면서 살아가는 방법...236

• 육안으로 사는 이들은 육체를 가치 있게 생각하고 뇌안으로 사는 이들은 지식을 가치 있게 생각한다. 심안으로 사는 이들은 사랑을 가치 있게 생각하고 영안으로 사는 이들은 만물을 가치 있게 생각한다. 248

• "본디 세상에는 범죄가 없는 법입니다. 단지 자기 생각대로만 세상을 살아가는 인간이 있을 뿐이지요. 전세계 범죄자들의 공통점이 하나 있습니다. 여러분은 그것이 무엇이라고 생각하십니까. 그것은 모든 범죄자들이 당하는 사람의 입장을 절대로 고려하지 않는다는 것입니다. 바로 그 공통점만 사라져버린다면 저절로 범죄도 사라져버립니다. 달리 말하면 각자가 남을 배려하는 마음을 간직하고 세상을 살아간다면 저절로 범죄도 사라져버립니다.  남을 배려하지 않고 살아가는 마음이 곧 범죄를 끌어안고 살아가는 마음입니다." 290

• 그동안 인고의 나날을 보내면서 깎았던 천 명의 부처님은 단지 마지막 한 명의 처사입상을 완성시키기 위한 인연의 징검다리였을지도 모른다는 생각이 들었다. 298