You live like this,
sheltered, in a delicate world,
and you believe you are living.

Then you read a book
or you take a trip and you discover that you are not living,
that you are hibernating.

The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness.

The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death):
absence of pleasure.

That is all.

It appears like an innocuous
illness.
monotony,
boredom,
death.

Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it.
They work in offices.
They drive a car.
They picnic with their families.
They raise children.

And then some shock treatment takes place,
a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them
and saves them from death.


Some never awaken.
― The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

To live content with small means;

to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;

to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not, rich;

to listen to stars and birds,
babes and sages, with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently,
await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.
– this is my symphony.

 

William Ellery Channing