i enjoyed this chapter
Desert Divers, Lindqvist, about his favorite author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What fascinated me as a boy when I read those books was their belief that the airman was a new kind of man.
A person taking off from the ground also elevated himself above the trivialities of life in to a new understanding, created by the particular experiences modern technology made possible.
The airman was not yet a captain in the routine trade between tax-free shops of the world's cities. Like the astronaut now, the airman was the most modern man of his day, a representative of the future on a temporary stopover in what was soon to be the past.
That gave him tremendous authority, which Saint-Ex used to ask yet again the great questions.
What is man? What are we for?
Man makes himself, he said.
We aren't born man, we become that.
We become that through solidarity with each other.
We become that by taking responsibility.
I loved his gravity when he said such things, quite shamlessly, with the same endless trust in his reader as the airman had in the empty air.
In that solemnity, he was so close to me, I could lean forward and touch him.
He taught me to demand of a writer not just excitement and adventure, but also knowledge, seriousness and presence.
Presence most of all.
If the writer is not there himself in his writing, how can he demand that you should be?
then i found this quote here
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
22
What fascinated me as a boy when I read those books was their belief that the airman was a new kind of man.
A person taking off from the ground also elevated himself above the trivialities of life in to a new understanding, created by the particular experiences modern technology made possible.
The airman was not yet a captain in the routine trade between tax-free shops of the world's cities. Like the astronaut now, the airman was the most modern man of his day, a representative of the future on a temporary stopover in what was soon to be the past.
That gave him tremendous authority, which Saint-Ex used to ask yet again the great questions.
What is man? What are we for?
Man makes himself, he said.
We aren't born man, we become that.
We become that through solidarity with each other.
We become that by taking responsibility.
I loved his gravity when he said such things, quite shamlessly, with the same endless trust in his reader as the airman had in the empty air.
In that solemnity, he was so close to me, I could lean forward and touch him.
He taught me to demand of a writer not just excitement and adventure, but also knowledge, seriousness and presence.
Presence most of all.
If the writer is not there himself in his writing, how can he demand that you should be?
then i found this quote here
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
on a whim, chad was marco @ 6:00 PM
5 $BlogItemCommentCount$:
At 9:17 PM,
ClickNathan said…
I read that boat before, I like it.
I should have applied such techniques to not letting our adventure in RVland expire.
Ah, how fate is a cruel, cruel wench.
At 9:18 PM,
ClickNathan said…
Oh and by boat, obviously, I meant quote.
"Buy a man a beer, he'll drink with you for the night. Teach the man to sing, and he'll karaoke with you on a regular basis."
At 1:21 PM,
chad was marco said…
yeah, but just so we're clear, the quote is markedly different from the classic:
"give a man food, he'll eat for the night, teach a man to hunt he'll eat, uh, more than a night"
markedly.
just so we're clear
At 1:57 PM,
chad was marco said…
it's more like, 'teach a man to hunt, he might get mad and kill you one day. teach a man to enjoy the thrill of a hunt, he might kill you some day, but not because he's mad at you for teaching him to love hunting'
At 11:18 PM,
ClickNathan said…
yeah, I dig. no one wants to build a boat, but who doesn't want to go on a grand adventure across the sea?
apparently, you guys.
so my phone was shut off on Sunday and therefore i didn't get your message until some time circa Monday afternoon.
and don't even get me started on Saturday. There were 6 people in all of Ebensburg. But at least I managed to avoid them...
Post a Comment
<< Click for Virus