[Video: “Where We Are,” by The Lumineers. (Lyrics here, and elsewhere.) As widely reported at the time of the song’s release, it was inspired by a near-fatal car crash, a decade prior; I think you’d have to be willfully literal-minded to imagine that that’s its sole “meaning.”]
From whiskey river:
Democracy
(excerpt)I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A
(Leonard Cohen [source])
…and:
Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.
(J. D. Salinger [source])
Not from whiskey river:
“Do you think,” said Mira, leaning on her spade, “that the kind of person who can never say sorry is also the kind of person who can never say thank you, or do you think that those are two different categories of people?”
“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Shelley said. She considered it.
“Because I saw this blog a while back,” Mira went on, “where this woman had just decided to stop saying sorry, like, ever, and every time she would have said it, she found a way of saying thank you instead. So, like, instead of saying ‘sorry for being late,’ she’d say, ‘thanks for waiting,’ and instead of saying ‘sorry for being such a mess’ she’d say, ‘thanks for being so understanding,’ and on and on like that. And she wrote in this blog how this one little change like totally transformed her life and all her relationships, like all of a sudden, her friendships got so much healthier and more mature and more honest, and because she was appreciating everyone in her life way more, they started appreciating her back, and it was this whole thing.”
“Wow,” Shelley said. “Thank you for telling me that story.”
“Thank you for listening.”
“Thank you for assuming that I was listening.”
“Thank you for not making it obvious if you weren’t.”
They dug the ground in silence for a moment, both grinning.
(Eleanor Catton [source — sorry, the book’s too recent for verbatim text to have been quoted anywhere!])
…and:
The Tale of Two Hands Clapped
Two hands clapped and made a noise. Both hands rejoiced. The noise was such that the clap had seemingly proved, once and for all, the existence of either hand. Flesh had met flesh. Skin, skin. Cells, cells. The slap had even stung a bit. The two hands were very happy with the outcome of their clapping experiment. They congratulated each other with more and more rigorous clapping and even a little bit of waving and thumbs-ups.
Hurrah! the Right Hand shouted. We’re here! We really do exist!
We’re here, said the Left, though a little doubtfully, because what had they confirmed, really, when you thought about it?
(Thomas Pierce [source])
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