If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can exist in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another… Unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable.
—John Stuart Mill
Understanding
Understanding is not a requirement of living, of survival. How could it be? The ability to understand evolved long after we were already living successfully. But to take the next step, from existence to something more, will be impossible without a commitment to understanding far beyond that which society has yet made or encouraged.
Labels: thought
