I've been listening to Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" on audibook as I run on the treadmill in the evenings and just delighting in it. It is like audio grilled cheese. Full of comfort and sentiment and just a pleasure to consume. Came across this gem again over the weekend (10/26/19)
"Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: 'Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.'" - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Sooo.... good. I feel like this complements well the lessons I recently heard from N.D. Wilson on life as a story and the characters we play on the stage God provides us.
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
daddy, nice grilled cheese. people don't want other people to always be checking in on "their" business, but when other people stick to their business they immediately assume that they are up to something. if people assume that people don't care about them, they get mad. if they think people are sticking their noses into other peoples' business, they're still mad. people these days are insatiable
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