We are not idealized wild things.
We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.

We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.

We're mortal - which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful - but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?

When the past dies, we mourn for the dead. When the future dies, we mourn for ourselves.

We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.

We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves - such a friend ought to be - do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

Death is part of who we are. It guides
us. It shapes us. It drives us to madness. Can you still be human if you have no mortal end

Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection.

And I think the answer is that we are, in reality, terribly frail animals. And we don't like to be reminded of how frail we are — how delicate the balances are inside our own bodies, how short our stay on Earth, and how easily it is ended.

human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions