Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Another Foster Wallace Quote

"There’s a kind of queer dissatisfaction or emptiness at the core of the self that is unassuageable by outside stuff. And my guess is that that’s been what’s going on, ever since people were hitting each other over the head with clubs. Though describable in a number of different words and cultural argots. And that our particular challenge is that there’s never been more and better stuff coming from the outside, that seems temporarily to sort of fill the hole or drown out the hole.”

“Personally, I believe that if it’s assuageable in any way it’s by internal means. I think those internal means have to be earned and developed, and it has something to do with, um, the pop-psych phrase is loving yourself. It’s more like, if you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it. I know that sounds a little pious."

4 comments:

Syd said...

Great stuff that I need to remember when I am beating myself up.

Ms. Moon said...

Smart man. I wish he could have loved that tiny, precious child of himself more. Why is that the hardest damn thing to do?

Mj Rains said...

Great quotes here. Know thyself, and love thyself...no matter what. We should all learn to do this. Hope your Easter weekend was great! We had the loveliest weather also.

Love ya,
Jenn

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Ms. Moon,
It IS the hardest thing to do. Definitely.

Jenn,
Glad you had a nice weekend and some good weather.

Love you two.