anogete: (black love)
anogete ([personal profile] anogete) wrote2008-01-31 10:13 pm
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Another Interesting Quote

From Shikasta by Doris Lessing:

The old watch the young with anguish, pain, fear. Above all what each has learned is what things cost, what has to be paid, the consequences and results of actions. But their own lives have been useless, because nothing they have learned can be passed on. What is the point of learning so much, so painfully, at such a cost to themselves and to others (often the offspring in question) if the next generation cannot take anything at all from them, can accept nothing as "given," as learned, as already understood?

And these old ones who have lived through everything know very well that every horror is possible and indeed inevitable, but the young are feeling that well, perhaps, it will be all right after all.

The old live waiting, longing, for the young to come to their senses and understand they personally have so little time left, and the planet has so little time left: "For God's sake! There is no time left, no time left for you, and not for us either, while you peacock about and play little games..."

[identity profile] bleedtoblue.livejournal.com 2008-02-01 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Great quote, I can really relate to those words.

[identity profile] anogete.livejournal.com 2008-02-08 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
I sent that quote to my boss. She angsts over her daughter because her daughter used to date someone exactly like her absent father (my boss's ex-husband). He's a big 'ol jerk, and the poor girl managed to find a guy just like him. It is a source of never-ending grief for her mother.

[identity profile] bleedtoblue.livejournal.com 2008-02-08 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Children in general are a source of never ending grief!