Well, Hello There! / "On Living"
- On Living
- Living is no laughing matter:
- you must live with great seriousness
- like a squirrel, for example--
- I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
- I mean living must be your whole occupation.
- Living is no laughing matter:
- you must take it seriously,
- so much so and to such a degree
- that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
- your back to the wall,
- or else in a laboratory
- in your white coat and safety glasses,
- you can die for people--
- even for people whose faces you've never seen,
- even though you know living
- is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
- I mean, you must take living so seriously
- that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees--
- and not for your children, either,
- but because although you fear death you don't believe it,
- because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
-
-- 1947, Nazim Hikmet; Translated by: Mutlu Konuk and Randy Blasing
Posted
Captured
- 2012-10-27
- Oceanville, NJ
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