I think just a few notches below "I can take a phrase that's rarely heard\Flip it, now it's a daily word," is "We knew from the start, that things fall apart and tend to shatter..."
Heh, when me and Kenyatta first hooked up we used to always say that. Like all couples there's a kind of risk involved, and we weren't sure what would happen. But the only way to make it work was to leap into it violently, to go all in like Atwater on Okoye. And then there's Samori. Unplanned for, but there it was--we're in our early 20s, dangerously in love, and now there's someone growing between us. I wish I could tell you that there was something solemn, deep, profound and spiritual that pushed us forward.
There were a lot of conversations. But more than anything I think it was the spirit of adventure that bonds us. It was less a feeling of being awed by the beauty of life, than a kind of "What the hell, right? We're all going to fall apart and shatter anyway--let's go for it." Yeah, not exactly great family planning. And yet now I think that worse things could have come of such randomness.
That line "things fall apart and tend to shatter" has a deep resonance of death to it. But it's a great statement on the human condition, this idea that though everything we are will one day be wiped from all existence, we act anyway. Not a thing we do ultimately matters, and yet we act. Meh, better men than me have tackled this one. But I love that line because it's so much bigger than itself. The video's pretty awesome too.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Off point from the substance, but love the Atwater reference. Was and still is my favorite player, after Barry Sanders, of all time.
I always thought that it was a cool reference to Chinua Achebe. As long as you cite the song, I think you've got to give him his props for the first part of that line.
"But we was like, that shit don't matta..." Isn't that how it goes? Can't watch the video at work.
That's second part. And yeah thats kinda the point. I havent read Things Fall Apart in years. And even that book takes its title from something else, no? "The center can not hold..." Yeats, I think.
You're right.
Hello, lurker and first time poster here. Yep, Achebe takes his title for Things Fall Apart from Yeats' "The Second Coming". I'm working from home and grabbed the book from my bookshelf...here is excerpt included at the beginning of the book:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
wow...that's some deep ish!
Thank you for the reminder. Beautiful, brilliant song.
Though I'm not sure I agree with the thrust of Yeats, or Achebe, or TNC. I think it is what we do in the face of anarchy and entropy that matters. Anarchy does/would exist without any sentience ever being present in the universe. Nothing else would. To me, the surprise is not that things fall apart, but that they so often, so unexpectedly, so against odds, indeed, the ultimate physical laws of the universe (entropy: http://www.entropylaw.com/), hold together.
I was 17 when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" came out. My lifelong philosophical takeway from that movie was this exchange as they prepare to jump off a cliff into a river to escape their pursuers:
Butch Cassidy: What's the matter with you?
Sundance Kid: I can't swim.
Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.
One of the most amazing stories I've ever heard goes something like this:
A guy decides to solo (climb without any kind of protection) up a crack. He hasn't even told anyone where he is. When he gets to a point where the crack splits, he takes the left fork, instead of the right fork. Eventually the crack runs out, but he can see a ledge just within the distance that he thinks he can dyno (jump to a hold). He makes the dyno and hauls himself up on to the ledge. Above him is a completely blank rock wall. Not even a few nubbins to grab. So he looks down and thinks "The only way I'm getting off of here is by down-dynoing into the crack." And he does. Goes back to the fork and takes the right way to finish up the route.
Just to make it clear, this guy dropped down without anything to catch him and managed to jam his hands into a crack in the rock face to catch himself. I've been climbing for well over a dozen years and couldn't even imagine pulling something like that off, even with all the protection in the world. It's amazing from a purely physical perspective. Then add in the fact that he was doing it without a rope to catch him. I've come to the conclusion that the only way he could make a decision like that is if he had decided that he was already dead. The only other option was sitting on the ledge until he died from exposure or thirst. At that point you might as well take the risk because you truly have nothing to lose.
This reminds me of a talk I heard Sheila Nevins from HBO give recently. When asked what she looks for when choosing a documentary, she said that she's always more interested in character instead of story, and that she always looks for the twists and turns, the unexpected moment. Because as she said, "In life, we know how the story ends. Might as well have as many suprises as you can along the way."
I think it resonated with me because I there's a level on which we are always subconsciously aware that we are constantly moving toward the moment where we cease to exist. And that the possibility of that moment happening in the very next second is always immiment. But we live anyway. Something courageous in that, I think.
Especially for the kind of people who, instead of allowing themselves to be pushed along on the moving walkways of life, pick up their shit and start walking forward.
Not exactly on topic, but I always heard it as "things fall apart, intentions shatter." Doesn't make that big a difference.
I have always believed that hope and entropy run the universe. If you can embrace that then life gets a little more bearable and a little more beautiful.
Spirit of adventure is important. Do not underestimate that. You have to either both have it to stay together, or both not have it. Be glad you both have it.