Ia Genberg The Details Quotes

We live so many lives within our lives – smaller lives with people who come and go, friends who disappear, children who grow up – and I never know which of these lives is meant to serve as the frame.

Some books stay in your bones long after their titles and details have slipped from memory.

The words for "forgiveness" and "freedom" are the same in several languages; an obvious point perhaps, but in this moment I realized that "letting go" could be said in the same breath.

if we're searching we should look in each other

Anxiety's central task, as instructed by fear, is to run ahead and touch everything, circle potentialities with the intention of preventing them from happening, on and on in a process that never stops, that becomes one with life.

Getting attached, to me they were like tattoos, everything and every detail present and intact, everyone I’d loved and liked was still with me.

I might have given the impression of being dedicated but I was not, and the book stack on my nightstand always included one or two titles I'd abandoned midway through.

We had the entirety of the twentieth century behind us and an unknown millennium in front of us, an epic split, and still we gave ourselves to small things, corrupt feelings.

Trust, after all, is only a word when you can’t feel it in your body. As soon as trust attaches, as soon as it takes root, it fuses with the rest of what’s there, takes on other names.

Her breathing was so anxious through the end, her anxiety the last to leave the body. But shortly thereafter, when her partner had gone to tell the nurses it was over, I felt her streak past, right by me. Finally you're free of all this, I thought.

I was attracted to it, I inhaled it, I let myself be impregnated by her way of speaking and being. I adapted, made my own version of it, let her change me forever. That's all there is to the self, or the so-called 'self': traces of the people we rub up against.

So how did our friendship end? With a scolding, of course; it was in the cards from the very beginning. All relationships have the potential to end abruptly, it's an inherent risk, but when I became friends with Niki I knew that the brutal end wasn't just one of the many conceivable scenarios; it was the only possible end. I knew with certainty that no friendship survived her, and nevertheless I was surprised. Like death, I guess.

I’ve had more than my share of magic in life, most often in the encounter with others. There is something there, and only there. I can’t be more specific than that, can only say that if we’re searching we should look in each other, that a pair of eyes are another’s sideways colon into something, or out of something.

Per andare in profondità bisogna essere capaci di perdere il controllo, di interrompere il costante monitoraggio del tempo e dello spazio per lasciarsi andare in caduta libera dentro se stessi, o dentro qualcun altro, o dentro una delle tante crepe dell'esistenza.

Articles about anxiety often note that it was historically useful, so evolution made it part of our nature. Anxiety motivated us to make sure the fire was out and the children still breathing; it protected us in teaching us to protect ourselves and others.

And I suppose that’s what’s at the heart of it for every person suffering from anxiety; the fact that life, by its very nature, is impossible to manage.

But it turned out that I already had everything right here, in the details around me, that it's simply a question of being attentive in looking at all of it, of letting myself go and directing my attention outward, and I mean truly outward. That's where this sense of being alive is found, in the alert gaze on another.

Varem kujutasin ma ette, et teravdatud elutunnetus tekib metsas, et ma suudan selleni jõuda kõrgete mändide all hulkudes, üksi kännu otsas istudes, kui päike silma paistab, või mere ääres kaljunukil silmapiiri vaadates, uskusin, et mõnikord pean ärkveloleku saavutamiseks vaikivate elementide sekka minema. Aga hiljem selgus, et see kõik on juba niigi olemas pisiasjades minu ümber, tuleb vaid teraselt vaadata, siis võin ma end vabaks lasta ja oma tähelepanu tõeliselt endast väljapoole suunata. Seal, kellelegi teisele suunatud ärksas pilgus, on teravdatud elutunnetus. Niimoodi, teda hoolika pilguga silmitsedes, hakkasin ma Birgittet mõistma.

An anecdote is a sealed box that cannot yield anything other than more sealed boxes until every party to the conversation—or the “so-called conversation

I preferred books with a pull so strong I couldn't get out. It was the same way with most things in life and as a result, my responsibilities were few, perhaps too few.

Tidigare inbillade jag mig att den förhöjda livskänslan fanns i skogen, att jag skulle ströva mig till den bland höga tallar, sittande ensam på stubbar med solen i ögonen, eller vid havet på klippor med utsikt, att jag måste ut bland de tysta elementen för att bli helt vaken. Men sen visade det sig att allt redan låg här, i detaljerna omkring mig, att det bara handlar om noggrannhet i blicken på allt, då jag kan släppa mig själv och rikta min uppmärksamhet utåt, alltså på riktigt utåt. Det är där den förhöjda livskänslan finns, i min vakna blick på en annan.

That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called ‘self’: traces of the people we rub up against (p.27) Ever since my friendship with Niki I think of the anecdote as a form of chronic illness that attaches itself to some people; that compulsion to tell everything in the shape of a story, to turn life into a formula meant to captivate, impress, upset, or inspire laughter. An anecdote is a sealed box that cannot yield anything other than more sealed boxes until every part of the conversation - sits there with their own pile of sealed boxes, mentally obstructed, tied to the mast, and with the anecdote next in line tugging at their attention. (p.46) It’s turned into one of those books you own without ever reading, a phenomenon you’ll come across in most people’s homes: an assurance for tomorrow, a future where you’ll have time to read. (p.50) A methodical approach to an irrational task offers a certain hope of success in a project that is in fact hopeless. (p.71) Trust, after all, is only a word when you can’t feel it in your body. (p.103)

I couldn’t choose to hold on to or let go of feelings; instead it would be the feelings that finally gave up and released me