“Close Your Eyes and You Will See”

 

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     I chose this quote as the title to a post dedicated to my student Miguel who was celebrating his 15th birthday last Saturday.

    It seems a particularly inspiring quote, although it provokes perplexity at the same time.

     That’s one of the ways quotes unfold their hidden power: they force us to stop the continuous flux of superficial thoughts; we surprise ourselves just staring at the improbable combination of words; then we start listening to a miscellaneous of unformed meanings, and we try to help, at least one of them, to take shape.

     A new born meaning could be like a little sun shining in our minds, sparkling new insights.

    We seem to live at high speed, rarely enjoying the delight of going for a walk out of every known path.

   After a simple pause to reflect upon how we may improve in coping with our work or study, we usually come quickly back to safer ground, where we stay in command. 

   But just by daring some few steps more into the inner wild, perhaps we could hear the underground water of meaning yet unheard of, silently flowing under our feet.

Ines

Quoting Christian Bobin

Beauty by inpi17  #EdublogsClub prompt 37

    We can use quotes as someone who appeals to a master’s authority, in order to reinforce our own perspective and make it more easily acceptable. But, most of the time, quotes are loved and collected by themselves, for the “ power of rapture” they hold upon our hearts.

   Quotes are similar to a noble metal like gold, king among trivial metals, in this sense that they are made of rare and highly condensed “thought material” (if I’m allowed this paradoxical expression). They are beautiful to contemplate and they put us in a special wondering state of mind.

   They could also be compared with precious stones that sparkle their radiance around them even if we can’t grasp them with our hands: in fact, some are difficult to penetrate at a glance and put our minds in movement thus defying us to think.

   Their intrinsic creativity is contagious: they may touch, in us, deep chords of the soul and provoke the sudden feeling of an inner revelation.

   They can fill us, in a moment, with a joy that springs from the intuition of a hidden truth; they have the power to encourage us when we feel inclined to deception; they may turn us wiser by pointing to the preciousness of life even in the midst of pain.