Sensitivity to the signs that life sends you. And attention. This “knocking from below” helps to keep your attention on what is really important and not to lose yourself.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec*
“All my life I have heard these knocks from below. And then, when I could not get up. And then, when I learned to flounder on top, so as not to be there, at the bottom. As a matter of fact, in them, in this helpless and inept Morse code, in these simple signals, is contained for me the whole truth of life, all poetry, all humor and all tears.
“The passer-by said, covered with matting” — today’s signal, a joke of my friend, a weak old man, a year since there is no wife. He is very similar to an important baby, a nanny takes care of him, he himself does not even know how to boil a soft-boiled egg («I cook, but it’s all hard!»). His wife took care of him all his life and protected him. He is there, quite below, after her departure, but he does not lose courage and even jokes. And looking forward to the future.»
* Stanisław Jerzy Lec — Polish poet, philosopher, satirist, see Uncombed Thoughts (Ripol Classic, 2010).