The word ‘novel’ carries, for me, a weight as ominous, all-consuming and unforgiving as any Job encountered.
Weight
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
None knows the weight of another’s burden.
One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.
A deep, black grief gripped Robert Kennedy in the months following his brother’s assassination. He lost weight, fell into melancholy silences, wore his brother’s clothes, smoked the cigars his brother had liked, and imitated his mannerisms.
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
It’s not my place to compare myself to greats like Tyson, Frazier or men like that. But I would look at a fighter like Evander Holyfield. He’s a great heavyweight who worked his way up through the weight classes to become champion and had to beat bigger men along the way.
Mindfulness practices enhance the connection between our body, our mind and everything else that is around us. Mindful living is the key to understanding our struggles with weight and to empowering us to control our weight.