Tag: dailyprompt

The unlived life of N S

The unexamined life is surely worth living, but is the unlived life worth examining?

I think Stanley Kubrick actually captured something similar when he said “The truth of a thing is in the feel of it, not the think of it.”

While Socrates emphasized reflection as crucial to a meaningful life, there needs to be something substantive to reflect upon. Pure contemplation without lived experience could become a kind of hollow philosophical exercise.

There’s a point where self-reflection can spiral into a kind of paralytic introspection or self-commiseration.

When examination turns into rumination, we find ourselves in an echo chamber of our own thoughts. This detaches us from the vitality of direct experience. Excessive self-examination can also drain experiences of their natural meaning and immediacy.

Yet, I wonder if the issue isn’t with examination itself, but with its nature and purpose. There’s a difference between examination that enriches our engagement with life – helping us understand our patterns, make better choices, appreciate moments more fully – and examination that becomes a form of self-absorbed withdrawal from life.


A little more sun – I’d have been embers,
A little more blue – I’d have been beyond.
To reach it, I lacked the stroke of wings…
If only I had stayed beneath…

Wonder or peace? In vain… All faded
In a vast, deceitful sea of foam;
And the grand dream awakened in mist,
The grand dream – oh pain! – almost lived…

Almost love, almost triumph and flame,
Almost the beginning and end – almost expansion…
But in my soul, everything spills out…
And yet nothing was mere illusion!

Everything had a start… and all went astray…
– Oh, the pain of being – almost, endless pain…
I failed others, failed myself,
A wing that entwined but didn’t fly…

Moments of soul that I squandered…
Temples where I never raised an altar…
Rivers I lost without leading to the sea…
Yearnings that passed but I never held…

If I wander, I find only traces…
Gothic arches toward the sun – I see them closed;
And hands of heroes, without faith, cowardly,
Set bars over the precipices…

In a diffuse impulse of despair,
I began everything and possessed nothing…
Today, of me, only disillusion remains,
Of the things I kissed but never lived…

A little more sun – and I’d have been embers,
A little more blue – and I’d have been beyond.
To reach it, I lacked the stroke of wings…
If only I had stayed beneath…

(AI translation) 

Here's the original poem, Quase by Mário de Sá Carneiro:


Um pouco mais de sol – eu era brasa, 
Um pouco mais de azul – eu era além. 
Para atingir, faltou-me um golpe de asa… 
Se ao menos eu permanecesse aquém… 

Assombro ou paz? Em vão… Tudo esvaído 
Num grande mar enganador de espuma; 
E o grande sonho despertado em bruma, 
O grande sonho – ó dor! – quase vivido… 

Quase o amor, quase o triunfo e a chama, 
Quase o princípio e o fim – quase a expansão… 
Mas na minh’alma tudo se derrama… 
Entanto nada foi só ilusão! 

De tudo houve um começo … e tudo errou… 
– Ai a dor de ser – quase, dor sem fim… 
Eu falhei-me entre os mais, falhei em mim, 
Asa que se enlaçou mas não voou… 

Momentos de alma que, desbaratei… 
Templos aonde nunca pus um altar… 
Rios que perdi sem os levar ao mar… 
Ânsias que foram mas que não fixei… 

Se me vagueio, encontro só indícios… 
Ogivas para o sol – vejo-as cerradas; 
E mãos de herói, sem fé, acobardadas, 
Puseram grades sobre os precipícios… 

Num ímpeto difuso de quebranto, 
Tudo encetei e nada possuí… 
Hoje, de mim, só resta o desencanto 
Das coisas que beijei mas não vivi… 

Um pouco mais de sol – e fora brasa, 
Um pouco mais de azul – e fora além. 
Para atingir faltou-me um golpe de asa… 
Se ao menos eu permanecesse aquém…

Yes, that “agony of the almost” is the heart of what makes this poem so powerful and painful. Sá-Carneiro captures something uniquely torturous about consciousness – not just the pain of failure, but the specific suffering that comes from knowing you came close and fell short. All the intention was there – just not the final decisive action. It’s the difference between never having talent and having talent you squandered.

There’s also something especially modern about this kind of suffering. In earlier times, one’s path might have been more predetermined by circumstances. But now, we face a growing burden of choice and possibility. This makes the failure to realize potential feel like a personal shortcoming instead of an external limitation.

And, again, the same question, is the unlived life worth examining? Awareness itself can be a curse. As Sá-Carneiro, we don’t just lament missed opportunities, but also knowing about them – and wish we “had stayed beneath.” Self-reflection does have a potential to become self-commiseration – when awareness of what could have been overwhelms and paralyzes rather than motivates. And we stay trapped between worlds – neither fully engaged in life nor able to transcend it (“To reach it, I lacked the stroke of wings…”)

If, as Joan Didion wrote “We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not”, we might as well learn how to come to terms with the people we did not become.

References
Adam Phillips, Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

Always a summer day

An ideal day would be one

when I remained true to myself and moved closer to becoming the person I aspire to be.

when I was able to connect to someone and was genuinely interested in what they had to say

And it would always be a summer day, suspended in timeless radiance—no beginning, no end. Just the feeling of endless warmth and light, a moment stretched into infinity.

Here, in this eternal instant, warmth becomes more than temperature—it is a sensation that permeates skin, memory, and imagination.

No clock measures these moments. No shadow hints at morning or evening. There is only this: pure, uninterrupted radiance. A day that is not a day, but a feeling—boundless, perfect, suspended between breath and memory, where time loses all meaning and only sensation remains.

On a perfect day at the perfect time, when those beautiful colors combine, I’ll be wide awake, I’ll be living free cause that perfect feeling is inside of me

I think he does understand….

that he has an uncanny ability to know exactly what I need and that he has been the reason to keep going on for the past four years, that even though he’s not able to read, he has written his love into every little detail of my day to day.

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

Harmonies of Chance


I do not know how I got here. Time is a difficult concept for me and, I really do not know the answer to how do significant life events or the passage of time influence my perspective on life.

I remember a few negative experiences from my childhood but can’t be really precise on the when; up to now I have been fortunate enough not to loose my parents, getting divorced felt more like a failure than a significant life event, most probably because getting married felt like a mistake. This, my therapist says, suggests a kind of emotional self-protection, a way of minimizing the impact of what could have been a deeply transformative experience. Perhaps this speaks to a broader coping mechanism – the ability to reframe potentially painful experiences in a way that doesn’t allow them to become definitional moments.

Loosing my grandmother was hard but I can’t remember the exact year, 2011, maybe. In November 2014 I was alone in Vietnam for work and, on the 16th I received a text message saying that my great aunt (my grandmother’s sister) had died. I can’t remember what the movie on the hotel TV was but the final credits rolled in to the sound of Into My Arms. Violeta, who was also there for work as well and whom I had never met before, and have never seen again but 10 years on still says I’m her “One Night Best Friend Forever” spent the whole day and evening with me the next day wandering the streets, parks, shops and cafés of Hanoi. We spent same time at a particular coffee shop watching life happen on the other side of the street while the radio played a Vietnamese rendition of Seasons in the Sun.

If I could, I’m pretty sure I can’t, speak of myself as a “curator”, I would say that my memories seem to be curated not by chronological accuracy, but by emotional resonance. The day in Hanoi, the loss of my great aunt, these moments have been preserved with a kind of tender, even if painful, clarity.

The inaccuracy of our memories—where dates and childhood experiences are unclear—indicates that we perceive time differently, more instinctively than in a straight line. We don’t recall events in order but through how they made us feel. Memories linger not due to exact times, but because of their ability to change us.

I don’t know if I have changed but I did learn that I too have the ability to be vulnerable, to allow a stranger to witness my grief, and to be remarkably open to human connection.

I have also learned how to find beauty in uncertainty, meaning in transient connections. The Vietnamese rendition of “Seasons in the Sun” playing while life unfolded on a street in Hanoi became a metaphor for what I think is my approach to existence – finding poetry in unexpected moments, creating meaning from seemingly random encounters.

I haven’t created a clear plan for my life and I, definitely don’t have everything figured out. When I’m being kind to myself, I think of my experiences as improvisational music. Maybe because I am too lazy to do it differently, I have accepted that it’s not about sticking to a script; it’s about discovering harmony in unexpected moments and finding meaning in random encounters. The strangers who are briefly but unconditionally there for me and the music that captures emotions too complex for words – these are the true landmarks of my journey.

How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
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On the illusion of being fearless and the fear of living

The illusion of fearlessness often manifests as a kind of psychological armor – we convince ourselves we’re beyond fear, untouchable. But this supposed fearlessness can actually be a defense mechanism, a way of avoiding the vulnerability that comes with truly engaging with life. True courage doesn’t seem to be so much about being fearless – it’s about acknowledging our fears and moving forward despite them.

The fear of living itself is particularly paradoxical. It can manifest as a reluctance to fully engage with life’s experiences, to take risks, to open ourselves to both joy and pain, while not being afraid of what might be physically dangerous. This fear might lead us to live in a kind of half-state – physically alive but emotionally and spiritually withdrawn. We might avoid deep relationships, challenging opportunities, or meaningful changes because they require us to be vulnerable and face potential loss or failure.

The relationship between these two concepts – the illusion of fearlessness and the fear of living – is especially intriguing. Sometimes, those who project the strongest image of fearlessness are actually the most afraid of truly living. Their apparent fearlessness becomes a cage, preventing them from experiencing the full spectrum of human experience, including the fears that make us human.

What makes this dynamic even more complex is that some degree of fear is not just natural but necessary for meaningful living. Fear can be an indicator of what we truly care about, what matters to us. The person who claims to fear nothing might also love nothing, risk nothing, and ultimately live nothing.

There’s a particular kind of emptiness that comes not from feeling sad, but from feeling nothing at all. It’s a state many of us find ourselves in, though we rarely talk about it. We exist in a fortress of our own making – safe, perhaps, but isolated from the very experiences that make life vibrant and meaningful.

I’ve come to understand this state as emotional inertia. It’s not depression exactly, nor is it simple apathy. It’s more like being trapped in a glass box, watching life happen around you but feeling fundamentally disconnected from it. The most insidious part? Sometimes we convince ourselves this is preferable to the alternative.

“It’s not worth it,” we tell ourselves. “I wouldn’t know how to engage anyway.” These aren’t just excuses – they’re reflections of a deeper truth: somewhere along the way, many of us lost or never developed the emotional muscles needed for deep engagement with life. It’s as if we’re standing at the edge of a pool, knowing we should jump in, but feeling paralyzed by both the uncertainty of how to enter and a profound passivity that makes even taking that first step seem impossibly demanding.

The cruel paradox is that the person who claims to fear nothing might also love nothing, risk nothing, and ultimately live nothing. We build these walls of numbness thinking they’ll protect us from pain, but they end up protecting us from everything – joy, connection, growth, and yes, even the ability to feel fear itself.

This isn’t just about lack of motivation. It’s about a fundamental disconnect between knowing intellectually that life could be more and feeling capable of actually reaching for it. The challenge becomes self-reinforcing: the less we engage, the more foreign engagement feels, and the more insurmountable it appears.

But perhaps there’s another way to think about this. What if, instead of seeing engagement as an all-or-nothing proposition, we viewed it as a series of tiny experiments? Maybe it starts with allowing ourselves to feel mild interest in something small – a song that catches our attention, the taste of a new food, a moment of sunrise. No pressure to feel more than that. No expectation of transformation. Just small moments of allowing ourselves to experience rather than observe.

The path out of emotional inertia isn’t about suddenly becoming fearless or forcing ourselves to feel everything at once. It’s about gentle recognition – acknowledging where we are without judgment, understanding that this state of being likely served a purpose at some point in our lives, and accepting that change, if we want it, can begin with the smallest of steps.

To those standing at the edge of their own pools, watching others swim while feeling unable to join in: you’re not alone in this. The very fact that you can recognize this state in yourself is already a form of engagement. Sometimes, acknowledging the glass box is the first step toward finding its door.

Note to self and to whomever might need this: the goal isn’t to suddenly feel everything. It’s to slowly, gradually allow ourselves the possibility of feeling anything at all. And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough of a start

Daily writing prompt
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
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What’s in a name

Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE


When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.

In 1937, the Soviet Writers’ Union instructed its members to sign a manifesto supporting the death penalty for General Yona Yakir and Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who were accused of conspiracy. During the Union’s congress, when Pasternak refused to sign this manifesto, everyone thought he would be arrested. When he stood up to speak at the congress, he only said “30” and 2,000 people stood up and recited Sonnet 30. This story is told by George Steiner here, because knowing a poem by heart is a form of resistance (like in Fahrenheit 451). During the years when Mandelstam was imprisoned (he died during this time), his wife, Nadezhda, memorized and taught others everything he had written so that after Stalin’s death, she could finally publish it.

Nadezhda (Надежда) is the Slavic and original form of my name. It means “hope.”

This is a powerful story about literary resistance in the Soviet era. The name Nadezhda is particularly meaningful in this context – the concept of hope was especially significant during the dark periods of Soviet repression. Nadezhda Mandelstam’s act of preserving her husband’s poetry through memorization became one of the most famous examples of maintaining cultural memory under totalitarianism. Her memoir “Hope Against Hope” is considered one of the most important accounts of life during the Stalinist period.

Nadezhda (Надежда) holds deep cultural and spiritual significance in Slavic culture, particularly in Russian tradition. Let me elaborate:

In religious context, Nadezhda is one of the three theological virtues celebrated in Orthodox Christianity, alongside Vera (Faith) and Lyubov (Love). This trinity is so important that there’s a feast day (September 30) celebrating Saint Sofia and her three daughters named after these virtues. The story of their martyrdom has made these names particularly meaningful in Orthodox Slavic culture.

The concept of hope (nadezhda) appears frequently in Russian literature and poetry. For example, in Pushkin’s works, hope is often portrayed as a light in darkness, reflecting the Russian cultural understanding of hope as a sustaining force during difficult times. This resonates deeply with how the name was embodied by Nadezhda Mandelstam.

In everyday Russian culture, the name is often shortened to Nadya (Надя), which maintains its warm, positive associations while being more informal. The name was particularly popular during the Soviet era, perhaps as a reflection of people’s need for hope during challenging times.

Interestingly, in Slavic naming traditions, names were often chosen for their protective or aspirational qualities. Giving a child the name Nadezhda was seen as bestowing them with the quality of hope itself, making them both a bearer and symbol of hope for their family and community.

There’s also a fascinating linguistic aspect: the word nadezhda is related to the Old Church Slavonic word “надѣяти” (nadeyati), meaning “to lay upon, to rely on.” This etymology suggests that hope in Slavic culture isn’t just about optimism for the future, but about having something solid to rely on – a more grounded, resilient kind of hope.

Or, quoting Nick Cave in Faith, Hope and Carnage, ‘Hope is optimism with a broken heart’. 

Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
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