no need

At least a flash of sanity: the momentary realization that there is no need
 to come to certain conclusions about persons, events, conflicts, trends, 
even trends toward evil and disaster, as if from day to day and even
 from moment to moment I had to know and declare (at least to myself):
 This is so and so, this is good, this is bad; we are heading for a “new era” 
or we are heading for destruction. What do such judgments mean?
 Little or nothing. Things are as they are, in an immense whole of which
 I am a part, and which I cannot pretend to grasp. To say I grasp it
 is immediately to put myself in a false position, as if I were “outside” it.
 Whereas to be in it is to seek truth in my own life and action, 
by moving where movement is possible and keeping still when 
movement is unnecessary, realizing that things will continue
 to define themselves ... - and will be more clear to me if I am silent
 and attentive,... rather than constantly formulating statements
 in this age which is smothered in language, in meaningless and inconclusive
 debate, and in which, in the last analysis, 
nobody listens to anything except what 
agrees with his own prejudices.



~ Thomas Merton

from Learning to Love

sketch by the author