In Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, Coleman Silk, a renowned classics professor, age 71, with a little help from Viagra, throws himself into an intoxicatingly impassioned love affair with an emotionally battered young woman. The unimaginable beating she has taken from life, her illiteracy and inability to be formed by societal expectations make him feel liberated from ''the ridiculous quest for significance.''
Why do we have this inclination to be – or to feel – important? At the end of the day, it is not really important to be important. If you think about it, the pursuit for obscurity is less ridiculous than the quest for significance. To fade into obscurity - stripped of all the trappings of "importance" - and be significant only to those who are significant to me – is what I aim for in life.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Ridiculous Quest For Significance
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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4 comments:
Hear! Hear! Thank pfizer for Viagra.
To be significant only to the one I love and sometimes annoy is my aim for life too. :)
she was the school janitor who cannot read nor write; he was a classics professor and former dean. they fell madly in love. :)
why was she annoyed at you? :)
She gets annoyed when she forgets where she parked her broom. I think it is time to upgrade to broom 2.0. :)
she gets annoyed when her patience is tested. :)
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