I know now that everything after the accident was merely a tactic to indulge in escapism and self-delusion. When you are hit by a streetcar that almost smashes you to a pulp, when you experience your own end..there is no recovery, only temporary respite, she thought. Pain made me aware of my body. My body made me aware of deterioration and death. That awareness made me old. My death sentence may have been deferred, but I now had to live with a twofold realization. Not only was I going to die–there was nothing unusual about that except that I was made to realize it at a tender age–but I knew exactly what that meant. Because I had already been through it. Unlike other condemned people for whom death is an abstraction because they have no idea what really awaits them, my stay of death came with a constant reminder, the presence of pain. Anonymous
About This Quote

In his book, "A Gate at the Stairs," Slovenian author Matija Babic describes a time when he was confronted with a painful personal experience. He describes being hit by a streetcar and left with a severely injured leg. In the aftermath of this accident, Babic was unable to work and had to take a break from his studies. A few years later, he found himself paralyzed from the chest down due to another accident.

In this second instance, he was able to recover from his physical handicap, but he continued to suffer from pain from the earlier accident. He then realized that all of these experiences were not of his own doing and that they were the result of external forces that came into play during each incident. He realized that the only way for him to overcome these pains was to learn how to live through them and make them less painful.

Source: Fridas Bed

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