“Do you know what people really want?
Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they’re telling the truth.”
— Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)
Salvador Dali was beyond eccentric to the point of being misunderstood by others…
Salvador Dali was a brilliant artist but sadly misunderstood as a person…
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Have you been understood in your life or have you been dismissed and/or misunderstood?
I have rarely been understood in life.
I can say that the few times it has happened, it has been magical.
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For more information…
Doris Lessing…http://www.dorislessing.org/
Salvador Dali…http://thedali.org/home.php
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Peace & Namaste…
Lovely. I’m with you. But remember these key lines from St. Francis’s prayer:
“O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.”
This will help.
Slayer Muser…
Thank you for your reflections!
Yes, you are correct in that life consists of loving and understanding others more so than being loved and being understood.
If you knew me “in real life” you would know that I try to love and understand more than I seek to be loved and understood.
Peace…
Love that quote! It took me by surprise. You mean everyone? Like, I know it’s not just me, but everyone?!
Ace post thanks (from a fellow eccentric ;~)
Jas Baku…
I am guessing that Doris Lessing meant everyone.
I suppose that there are some people who could care less if they are understood.
Perhaps they seek only to understand themselves and life itself {and that is quite the undertaking}.
I was surprised that the quote took you by surprise 😉
Thanks for reading and commenting.
I am also quite eccentric but Dali probably was more so than both of us combined!
Brilliant pic-quote.
Respect every comment and commentator here, but disagree with “Everyone”. It is a generalisation that I feel to be presumptuous and slightly arrogant. I think it’s wrong to impose your own feelings on everyone else.
Anyway, back to the sense of alienation that NOT everyone feels: this is on a par too.
Slayer Muser…
Thanks for the music and for your honesty.
Generalizations don’t encompass the continuum of human experience.
We don’t all feel alienated or misunderstood.
I like the quote because it speaks to the human need for connection and the hunger to be listened to.
Peace…
Further thoughts on being misunderstood.
I typed out a chapter from one of my favourite books: http://slayermusings.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/2624/
You would benefit – nay, will glow – from reading all of it, but especially read from “3. An insight of bohemians…” to “… the poet cannot walk.”
Try not to have an orgasm.