"Happiness is amazing. It's so amazing, it doesn't matter whether it's yours or not. It's that lovely thing; a society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -Anne in 'After Life'.
Reminds me of...
“An individual human existence should be like a river - small at first, narrowly contained within it's banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and waterfalls. Gradually, the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged with the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.” Bertrand Russell, How to Grow Old
And
That seems very romantic coming from Mr. Russell. I like it though. We do need each other to be happy. This class has made it perfectly clear that happiness is born out of connection and relationships.
ReplyDeleteRussell definitely pursued his connections and relationships, sometimes a bit too promiscuously perhaps. And it's harder to merge with the "universal life" than he makes it sound... but still, a noble and happy-making aspiration.
ReplyDelete