| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: THEAETETUS: Surely we cannot admit that the number is less than it
appeared to be just now.
STRANGER: Then we may without fear contend that motion is other than
being?
THEAETETUS: Without the least fear.
STRANGER: The plain result is that motion, since it partakes of being,
really is and also is not?
THEAETETUS: Nothing can be plainer.
STRANGER: Then not-being necessarily exists in the case of motion and of
every class; for the nature of the other entering into them all, makes each
of them other than being, and so non-existent; and therefore of all of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get food and
live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life
against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent
on the moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of
which on an average only one comes to maturity, may be more truly said to
struggle with the plants of the same and other kinds which already clothe
the ground. The missletoe is dependent on the apple and a few other trees,
but can only in a far-fetched sense be said to struggle with these trees,
for if too many of these parasites grow on the same tree, it will languish
and die. But several seedling missletoes, growing close together on the
same branch, may more truly be said to struggle with each other. As the
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: to them opens heaven to them. They become satellites, disciples,
worshippers of the apostle. Now the apostle may be a voluptuary
without much conscience. Nature may have given him enough virtue to
suffice in a reasonable environment. But this allowance may not be
enough to defend him against the temptation and demoralization of
finding himself a little god on the strength of what ought to be a
quite ordinary culture. He may find adorers in all directions in our
uncultivated society among people of stronger character than himself,
not one of whom, if they had been artistically educated, would have
had anything to learn from him or regarded him as in any way
extraordinary apart from his actual achievements as an artist.
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