Time's arrow

I've not met many thirty year olds as wise as Maria Popova. Or any.

You know, we never see the world exactly as it is. We see it as we hope it will be or we fear it might be. And we spend our lives going through a sort of modified stages of grief about that realization. And we deny it, and then we argue with it, and we despair over it. But eventually — and this is my belief — that we come to see it, not as despairing, but as vitalizing.

We never see the world exactly as it is because we are how the world is.

She's wise because she puts in the time, takes no shortcuts.

I listened to her On Being conversation with Krista Tippett late last night (this morning), waiting up on Older Daughter and meditating on temps perdu. Spent a lot of time yesterday after school with Younger Daughter, too, running errands all over town and secretly rueing the rapidly-approaching day when she won't need me for that.

And that's the way it is. Tempus fugit. "The only way to glean knowledge is contemplation. And the road to that is time. There's nothing else. It's just time."