On Awareness — James Thurber
"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness."
Attributed to James Thurber
Photo by Albina White on Pexels
James Thurber created Walter Mitty — the quiet man who lived entire heroic lives inside his own imagination. What most people don't know is that Thurber was living his own version of that story.
He lost an eye as a child. By his late thirties, the other eye was failing. Operations couldn't save his sight. By the time he was fully blind, he had already written some of the most quietly observed work in American literature. He didn't look back at what was disappearing. He didn't look forward in fear of the darkness coming. He looked around — at people, at absurdity, at the small heroic moments hiding in ordinary days.
Mitty was fiction. The awareness was real.
Molins J.
What are you missing because you're looking too far back or too far ahead?
If this resonated, you might also enjoy: On Anticipation — J.R.R. Tolkien and On Love — Frederick Buechner