Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love ...
It is reached when one deliberately turns his back on all help
from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.
In every man there is hidden some root of despair
because in every man there is pride that vegetates and springs weeds
and rank flowers of self-pity as soon as our own resources fail us. . . .
But a man who is truly humble cannot despair,
because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing
as self-pity.
Humility, therefore, is absolutely necessary
if man is to avoid acting like a baby all his life.
To grow up means, in fact, to become humble,
to throw away the illusion that I am at the center
of everything and that other people only exist
to provide me with comfort and pleasure…
~ Thomas Merton
from Seeds of Contemplation
with thanks to louie, louie
art by van gogh
