Poet and philosopher David White believes that only inevitable disappointments help us grow up. His quotes are about true friendship, about the finiteness of love and about bitter losses, without which there is no life.
About friendship
Friendship is a reflection of our presence in life and evidence of forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through the eyes of another, it can only endure for years with someone who forgives us for our mistakes again and again, just as we find the strength in ourselves to forgive friends in turn. A true friend knows our struggles and our Shadow and stays by our side—more often when we are vulnerable and weak than when we are successful and under the strange delusion that we don’t need friends.
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The deep current of true friendship is a blessing because we can rediscover it in its original form over and over again through understanding and compassion. No matter how long friendship lasts, it is based on constant, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and compassion, friendship perishes.
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As the years go by, close friendships always reveal a shadow side in the other person as well as in ourselves. To remain friends, we must know the other, his difficulties and even sins, and bring out the best in him – not by attacking with criticism, but by turning to the best in him, to the main creative facet of his personality, thus imperceptibly weakening that which diminishes him, makes you less generous, doesn’t let you be yourself.
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The highest measure of friendship — not improving yourself or others, the highest standard is to be a witness. The privilege of opening up to the loving gaze of friends, and the exact same privilege — to be honored to see the most intimate in close friends, to go with them through life and believe in them, sometimes just to accompany them, even for a very short time, on a journey that no one can make alone.
About a broken heart
It is impossible to protect yourself from disappointments, sadness, grief. A broken heart is a natural result of our love and care for someone or something over which we have no control … The first crack in the heart appears when we are asked to let go, but we are unable to, in other words, disappointment and sadness settle in we are colored and enlarged, as if under a magnifying glass, every single day; a broken heart is not a short-term phenomenon, it is a road that everyone, even the most ordinary, “average” person is forced to go.
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A broken heart is a sign of our sincerity: in love, in work, in an attempt to master a musical instrument, in an attempt to become more generous. A broken heart is a beautiful helpless part of love, its essence and emblem.
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The path to adulthood lies through a broken heart; and yet we say “broken heart” as if it meant only that something went wrong: love was not reciprocated, the dream was shattered. But perhaps a broken heart is the core of our human existence, the main thing on the way from here to the other side, thanks to it we learn to love what we meet on our way. There is almost no road available to man that does not lead to a broken heart.
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We can look at disappointments and grief in a different way: not as the end of the road or the death of hope, but as a strong embrace of what we have always wanted or are about to lose. A broken heart asks us not to look for another way, because there is no other way. It calls us to what we love and have always loved, asking the inevitable and often beautiful question.
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The things and people that have been with us from the beginning are asking us to be ready when the time comes to let go one last time.
About Love
We as human beings have a wonderful ability to fall in love with a person, with a job, and even with the idea of our own existence.
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Falling in love enhances the sense of time. You feel that it is running away like sand. Only when we fall in love, we feel the present moment more acutely than ever and understand that what is available to us now may never happen again.
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Love is the mirror of our own fleeting possibilities; inner sense of self. Love is a test of self-worth: I cannot believe that I am exactly what they think of me to let love into my life. Love comes to us, but at the same time it is a form of disappearance. The worker must stop working in order to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Love wouldn’t be so valuable if it never ended.
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There is no greater gift in human life than the opportunity to be happy through falling in love, through this total dedication and daily comfort that the feeling of love brings. Love reminds us of our mortality, but at the same time that there is a power greater than death that we cannot control.
About the Developer
David White – American philosopher, poet, prose writer, traveler. His