Kathleen Constantine's Blog - Posts Tagged "humanity"
Dreaming
“I am not interested in your happiness. I’m not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be … I’d like to substitute something else for its search … I want to talk about dreaming.”
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison contains so much truth and wisdom that it’s almost unbearable to consume it in one volume.
What I read today, Morrison's commencement address to the Sarah Lawrence class of 1988, should be required reading. I wanted to shout it from a mountaintop, so thought at the very least I could post about it here.
Oh, how I wish I heard this voice speaking to us now; how I wish this was a political platform; how I wish this viewpoint could be seen in every conversation about the critical issues we currently face.
Morrison doesn't just tell us to dream. She tells us how, and also why it is crucial.
“Dream the world as it ought to be … Imagine, envision what it would be like to know that your comfort, your fun, your safety are not based on the deprivation of another. It’s possible. But not if we are committed to outmoded paradigms, to moribund thinking that has not been preceded or dappled by dreaming. It is possible, and now it is necessary. Necessary because if you do not feed the hungry, they will eat you, and the manner of their eating is as varied as it is fierce.”
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison contains so much truth and wisdom that it’s almost unbearable to consume it in one volume.
What I read today, Morrison's commencement address to the Sarah Lawrence class of 1988, should be required reading. I wanted to shout it from a mountaintop, so thought at the very least I could post about it here.
Oh, how I wish I heard this voice speaking to us now; how I wish this was a political platform; how I wish this viewpoint could be seen in every conversation about the critical issues we currently face.
Morrison doesn't just tell us to dream. She tells us how, and also why it is crucial.
“Dream the world as it ought to be … Imagine, envision what it would be like to know that your comfort, your fun, your safety are not based on the deprivation of another. It’s possible. But not if we are committed to outmoded paradigms, to moribund thinking that has not been preceded or dappled by dreaming. It is possible, and now it is necessary. Necessary because if you do not feed the hungry, they will eat you, and the manner of their eating is as varied as it is fierce.”
