He chid him gently for his want of spirit, and
then went on to say:
"You have no future! I am amazed at such a remark in the mouth of a
man of thought. Which one of us can say he has a future? To say we
have a future is simply to say that we wish for something, strive
after something, set some aim before us. That which we call a man's
future does not lie outside of him, but in himself. I would have you
observe that events rarely or never happen as we expect, and that
the plans which we have worked out most zealously are scarcely ever
carried out. And yet we firmly believe, all the time, that we have a
future. Nature permits us no outlook into Time. A wall rises before
our eyes to hide what is coming. But the cheerless nakedness of that
wall being unbearable to us, we paint it over with landscapes of our
own devising. And that is what the unthinking mind calls the future.
Any one can paint these pictures on the wall, and to complain of its
bareness is to acknowledge the poverty of one's own imagination
wishing for something,--never mind what. The higher, the more
unattainable, the better. Only desire earnestly, and you will feel
yourself alive again. Your misfortune, my friend, is that you have
not to work for your daily bread.
Pages:
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491