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A review by madeleinegeorge
Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte
4.0
Despite the fundamental definitions, brilliant imagery, and eloquent answers he uses to bring these words to life-- stunning mini-editorials on the many assays and challenges man must vault over in every sector of life-- I think Whyte's real talent lies in the many questions I was left with after finishing each.
Take, for example, one of the very first entries-- Anger. As someone very rarely prone to anger, I found his characterization of it quite liberating: understanding it as a function of care (for others or the self) surpassing the mind and body's ability to contain it moves us from the threatening and loveless image of anger to one that is more compassionate and understanding. But can the body actually be large enough and strong enough to hold the force of our powerless, punishing care / love that turns into anger? Or is that just an optimistic myth? If anger "illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for", what is to be assumed about our limits of understanding and the constraints of our daily life that care must be transformed into something incoherent? To prevent rage from creeping up on a love, must we always, then, confine it to the shallows of our hearts? Can one harbor a love that is deep and also peaceful.
And that's only one of them.
Whyte holds an admirable standard of compassion: for ourselves and for others. He posits that, within the world of inarticulable Beauty and Goodness we inhabit, belonging is both essential and assailable. Being seen or heard or understood or wanted are earned facets of the human experience. Whyte recognizes that the consequences for not deserving those things are often fatal, but also that this very lack can lead to a place of discovery and redemption.
Despair, he says, is one of the purest havens we can occupy for ourselves. Grief is the healing howl of love redistributing. Solitude is the antidote for self-deception. Heartbreak is the participation in the restructuring of the self and reality.
Everything is about love for this guy. And I love that. I admire that. I am more envious of his firm conviction than I care to admit. His philosophy is one where every vile human impulse is translated into care that is simply being handled by atrophied senses, inhospitable circumstances. Every pitiable fumble and graceless mistake is but a product of overextension and ignorance. He has an unbounded and unwavering belief in people and their essential goodness. His perspective and belief are in themselves gifts; to hold it in your hands and read from cover to cover is another deep and profoundly moving one, indeed.
Essentials:
"Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive." (Courage)
"Despair takes us in when we have nowhere else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore. [...] It is a last protection. [...] It is the place we go when we no longer want to make a home in the world and where we feel that we may never have deserved that home in the first place. " (Despair)
"To be disappointed is to reappraise not only reality itself but our foundational relationship to the pattern of events, places, and people that surround us, and which, until we were properly disappointed, we had misinterpreted and misunderstood." (Disappointment)
FRIENDSHIP (the entire section. what gems).
"To stop giving in any situation is to call an end to relationship." (Giving)
"We are, miraculously, part of something rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue." (Gratitude)
"It is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight. [...] It is an indication of our sincerity." (Heartbreak)
"Even the most solitary writer needs a reader." (Help)
"What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence. [...] Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others." (Hiding)
"We name mostly in order to control, but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened to us or is continuing to happen: an invitation to the most difficult art, to love without naming at all." (Naming)
"What is abiding in human life is the actual daily conversation that occurs in the very shadow of the monuments we raise to our abstract desires." (Rome)
"Whom could we know so well and so intimately through all the twists and turns of a given life that we could show them, exactly, the continuous and appropriate form of love they need?" (Unrequited)
"We make what we make, we give a gift, not only through what we make or do, but in the way we feel as we do, and even in the way others witness us in our feeling and doing." (Work)
Take, for example, one of the very first entries-- Anger. As someone very rarely prone to anger, I found his characterization of it quite liberating: understanding it as a function of care (for others or the self) surpassing the mind and body's ability to contain it moves us from the threatening and loveless image of anger to one that is more compassionate and understanding. But can the body actually be large enough and strong enough to hold the force of our powerless, punishing care / love that turns into anger? Or is that just an optimistic myth? If anger "illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for", what is to be assumed about our limits of understanding and the constraints of our daily life that care must be transformed into something incoherent? To prevent rage from creeping up on a love, must we always, then, confine it to the shallows of our hearts? Can one harbor a love that is deep and also peaceful.
And that's only one of them.
Whyte holds an admirable standard of compassion: for ourselves and for others. He posits that, within the world of inarticulable Beauty and Goodness we inhabit, belonging is both essential and assailable. Being seen or heard or understood or wanted are earned facets of the human experience. Whyte recognizes that the consequences for not deserving those things are often fatal, but also that this very lack can lead to a place of discovery and redemption.
Despair, he says, is one of the purest havens we can occupy for ourselves. Grief is the healing howl of love redistributing. Solitude is the antidote for self-deception. Heartbreak is the participation in the restructuring of the self and reality.
Everything is about love for this guy. And I love that. I admire that. I am more envious of his firm conviction than I care to admit. His philosophy is one where every vile human impulse is translated into care that is simply being handled by atrophied senses, inhospitable circumstances. Every pitiable fumble and graceless mistake is but a product of overextension and ignorance. He has an unbounded and unwavering belief in people and their essential goodness. His perspective and belief are in themselves gifts; to hold it in your hands and read from cover to cover is another deep and profoundly moving one, indeed.
Essentials:
"Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive." (Courage)
"Despair takes us in when we have nowhere else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore. [...] It is a last protection. [...] It is the place we go when we no longer want to make a home in the world and where we feel that we may never have deserved that home in the first place. " (Despair)
"To be disappointed is to reappraise not only reality itself but our foundational relationship to the pattern of events, places, and people that surround us, and which, until we were properly disappointed, we had misinterpreted and misunderstood." (Disappointment)
FRIENDSHIP (the entire section. what gems).
"To stop giving in any situation is to call an end to relationship." (Giving)
"We are, miraculously, part of something rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue." (Gratitude)
"It is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight. [...] It is an indication of our sincerity." (Heartbreak)
"Even the most solitary writer needs a reader." (Help)
"What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence. [...] Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others." (Hiding)
"We name mostly in order to control, but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened to us or is continuing to happen: an invitation to the most difficult art, to love without naming at all." (Naming)
"What is abiding in human life is the actual daily conversation that occurs in the very shadow of the monuments we raise to our abstract desires." (Rome)
"Whom could we know so well and so intimately through all the twists and turns of a given life that we could show them, exactly, the continuous and appropriate form of love they need?" (Unrequited)
"We make what we make, we give a gift, not only through what we make or do, but in the way we feel as we do, and even in the way others witness us in our feeling and doing." (Work)