The training of wizards is a very difficult thing. Wizards have to spend years standing in a chalk circle until they can manage without it. They push out their power bit by bit, first within their bodies, then within their immediate circle. It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil.
from Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
i've been pushed beyond my limits in many ways recently. i won't keep pushing if i am being pushed, especially if i am exerting more energy than i am capable of at the moment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I love this quote... I agree with everything until the end ( I agree with the end too, but not without a footnote). Changes that affect lives are predominately what could be construed as evil, but rather than talk broadly in this sense--I want to refer to individual relationships between friends, lovers. To this I must say that full understanding is never possible--for we are more than we ourselves could ever know and understand--our forms are transformed in the instance of our own dissection. Yet in another sense, the changes we are often looking for are not transformational self-shifting changes, but rather changes in behaviors, actions. The definitions are murky here--how much does a change in another actions, behavior transform the living core of another (the mysterious ever infinite core); however, through understanding and knowledge of certain action/behavior--with selfless intention, and weighing the moral consequences and how far reaching the change you wish to bring about is, enacting change is not evil. I think the important question to ask oneself when faced with these wizard-ing decisions--"are these changes enacted by my own discontent?," are they truly for the "benefit" of the change-ee? If they are for yourself--it opens a whirlwind of other questions--"am I entitled to this change?," "is it wanted due to my own shortcomings?," "what will be gained and what will be lost?" These questions are blanketing over a wide array of nuance and possibility--but I think they're important questions to ask depending on the scale of a situation.
Post a Comment