Otherwise
A young man who only asks for painlessness, gentlemen, cannot grow up. To grow up means to have pain. And very heavy pain. There is no other way for life. Have you ever seen a child born? Have you? You should, because then you would know how costly it is to be born, that your mother has a travail. That’s a terrible pain. And that has to be so, because otherwise your life won’t be good.
Life struggles against death, and the heavier, more passionately it struggles, the more life it is. . . . A painless life, gentlemen, is no life. It’s worse than death. Can neither live nor die. (Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Comparative Religion, 1954)
Leave a Reply