Our ideas emerged out of the ground of our action over thousands and thousands of years. And when philosophers were putting forth those ideas, what t… - Jordan Peterson

Much of happiness is hope,

Mary is the Great Mother. She is the Mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the Mother. What's the sacrifice of the Mother? That's easy: If you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, "Well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that." And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like the Pieta.
"Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?" Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is.

I exposed myself to a larger number of paintings, I like to think, than anyone else in history. For at least four years, starting in 2001, I searched eBay, looking at roughly a thousand paintings a day, seeking the one or two in that number that were of genuine quality.