“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”
― Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Funny how thoughts initially shared seventy some years ago have a stinging revelance even today. Even more comical that I chose to employ this mode of sharing it with you all. Perhaps in the hope of attaining opinion and applause. But I digress…
Speaking as one who knows well of the cunning nature of social media, it is stunning that he phrased this the way he did so long ago. Perhaps back then, a similar quest for “perfection” was driven through the papers and radio.
A weird life it is.
Attempting to live always in another’s imagination. As if that were the only place one could become real.
Now I came to be roughly a decade after this was written. And to be honest, I do like to share my thoughts and myself via this mode of interaction. Perhaps I need to engage in some discernment regarding the imagination and becoming real aspects of his insights.
But then again, whether it be business or personal, an actual conversation is the best way to achieve and maintain that sense of reality. Even better? Grab a cup of Joe and sit face to face. Take a walk together. Sit in a park and talk. But there I go showing my age.
Don’t get me wrong, stimulating the imagination is a great thing. Potentially a truly genuine source of inspiration, aspiration even affirmation in some sense. Yet in some way, we need to close the gap, reduce the space and make us all less remote to one another.
That way we can be truly present.
Really there.
And totally real.
Not so much a weird life.
Just life as it is meant to be.
...my temporary assignment. 