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Sometimes you just have to savor the little joys in life.
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Without the buttress of Christianity, without the cold dignity of a Stoicism that had evolved in response to a world in which human life was a trivial commodity, cheap enough to be expended at every circus to amuse the crowd, the rational obstacles [against suicide] begin to seem strangely flimsy. When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself. You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business. Perhaps this is what Freud meant by “the narcissistic satisfactions [which the ego] derives from being alive.” Most of the time, they seem enough. They are, anyway, all we ever have or can ever expect.
-- A. Alvarez, “The Savage God”
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Without the buttress of Christianity, without the cold dignity of a Stoicism that had evolved in response to a world in which human life was a trivial commodity, cheap enough to be expended at every circus to amuse the crowd, the rational obstacles [against suicide] begin to seem strangely flimsy. When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself. You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business. Perhaps this is what Freud meant by “the narcissistic satisfactions [which the ego] derives from being alive.” Most of the time, they seem enough. They are, anyway, all we ever have or can ever expect.
-- A. Alvarez, “The Savage God”
