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Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit
A half-mile up, suspended by nylon wings and the promise of good lift, life hanges on a pledge. Richard Bach made that pledge, fifty years before, to return to the frightened child he used to be and teach him everything he had learned from living. His promise went unfulfilled until one day, hovering between earth and sky, Richard encounters Dickie Bach, age nine--irrepressible challenger of every notion Richard embraces....
In this exhilarating adventure, Richard and Dickie probe the timeless questions both need answered if either is to be Why does growing spiritually mean never growing up? Can we peacefully coexist with the consequences of our choices? Why is it that only by running from safety can we make our wildest dreams take flight?
In this exhilarating adventure, Richard and Dickie probe the timeless questions both need answered if either is to be Why does growing spiritually mean never growing up? Can we peacefully coexist with the consequences of our choices? Why is it that only by running from safety can we make our wildest dreams take flight?
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Richard Bach
111 books3,519 followers
Since Jonathan Livingston Seagull - which dominated the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for two consecutive years - Richard Bach has touched millions of people through his humor, wisdom and insight.
With over 60 million copies of his books sold, Richard Bach remains one of the world's most beloved authors. A former USAF fighter pilot, Air Force captain and latter-day barnstorming pilot, Bach continues to be an avid aviator-author, exploring and chronicling the joys and freedom of flying, reporting his findings to readers.
His most recent works include Travels with Puff, which recounts Bach's journey from Florida to Washington state in his small seaplane, Puff, and Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student, which incorporates Bach's real-life plane crash.
In October 2014, the never-before-published Part Four to Jonathan Livingston Seagull was published.
Readers can find more about Richard and his work at www.richardbach.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
March 28, 2007
Favorite Quotes
If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body, and if our thought about body is that it’s condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.
Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I’m master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell’s own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.
You don’t want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions, asked again, bring you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.
Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow, something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your next brick wall.
It must happen to us all…We pack up what we’ve learned so far and leave the familiar behind. No fun, that shearing separation, but somewhere within, we must dimly know that saying goodbye to safety brings the only security we’ll ever know.
When we put up with any situation we don’t have to put up with, it’s not because we’re dumb. We put up with it, because we want the lesson only that situation can teach, and we want it more than freedom myself.
Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.
It’s okay is a cosmic truth…It’s okay. If there were nothing here for us to learn, we wouldn’t bother to pay the fare.
I have a way of finding what is true for me, and it’s not finished yet.
What matters is how I use what I know, every minute of every day; how I use it to remember, in the midst of the game.
Another choice: Win by losing. Before your outer walls break, as break they must, build an inner place to protect your truth. Protect that you are infinite life, choosing its playground; protect that the world you know exists with your consent and for your own good reasons; protect that your purpose and mission is to shine love in your own playful way, in the moments you decide will be most dramatic.
If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body, and if our thought about body is that it’s condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.
Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I’m master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell’s own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.
You don’t want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions, asked again, bring you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.
Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow, something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your next brick wall.
It must happen to us all…We pack up what we’ve learned so far and leave the familiar behind. No fun, that shearing separation, but somewhere within, we must dimly know that saying goodbye to safety brings the only security we’ll ever know.
When we put up with any situation we don’t have to put up with, it’s not because we’re dumb. We put up with it, because we want the lesson only that situation can teach, and we want it more than freedom myself.
Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.
It’s okay is a cosmic truth…It’s okay. If there were nothing here for us to learn, we wouldn’t bother to pay the fare.
I have a way of finding what is true for me, and it’s not finished yet.
What matters is how I use what I know, every minute of every day; how I use it to remember, in the midst of the game.
Another choice: Win by losing. Before your outer walls break, as break they must, build an inner place to protect your truth. Protect that you are infinite life, choosing its playground; protect that the world you know exists with your consent and for your own good reasons; protect that your purpose and mission is to shine love in your own playful way, in the moments you decide will be most dramatic.
April 15, 2023
The book is "Running from Safety" by Richard Bach. Richard is having an imaginary conversation with himself as a nine-year-old attempting to impart knowledge about the 9-year-old him as he grows up.
This book I am reading for the 2nd time. I had underlined certain parts the 1st time through. I put them together on this post.
"Love lasts in a marriage as long as wife and husband keep caring about what the other thinks."
"Choose what you love and chase it top speed and I, your future, do solemnly promise that you will never die from so what"
"In school and business and marriage, in any adventure you pick, if you care what your last words will be, you trust what you know and you dare toward your hope"
"Remember that this world is not reality. It is a playground of appearances on which we practice overcoming seems-to-be with you knowing of Is. The principle of Coincidence is a power tool that promises in this playground to take us to the other side of our wall (what is stopping us)"
Like attracts like. Choose a love and work to make it true and somehow something will happen , something you couldn't plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to see you on the way to your next brick wall (obstacle).
Saying good-bye to safety brings the only security we'll ever know.
"Real marriage isn't like two people dashing across a bridge in rice and ribbons. I's discovering after a lifetime that they've built the bridge together with their own hands."
"lose romance and you loose the power to go on through hard times, learning to love. Lose romance and you'll never learn, you'll fail at love. Fail at love, the other tests don't count
"We really love only once or twice in our lives. Treasure that love. That's my secret of marriage."
This book I am reading for the 2nd time. I had underlined certain parts the 1st time through. I put them together on this post.
"Love lasts in a marriage as long as wife and husband keep caring about what the other thinks."
"Choose what you love and chase it top speed and I, your future, do solemnly promise that you will never die from so what"
"In school and business and marriage, in any adventure you pick, if you care what your last words will be, you trust what you know and you dare toward your hope"
"Remember that this world is not reality. It is a playground of appearances on which we practice overcoming seems-to-be with you knowing of Is. The principle of Coincidence is a power tool that promises in this playground to take us to the other side of our wall (what is stopping us)"
Like attracts like. Choose a love and work to make it true and somehow something will happen , something you couldn't plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to see you on the way to your next brick wall (obstacle).
Saying good-bye to safety brings the only security we'll ever know.
"Real marriage isn't like two people dashing across a bridge in rice and ribbons. I's discovering after a lifetime that they've built the bridge together with their own hands."
"lose romance and you loose the power to go on through hard times, learning to love. Lose romance and you'll never learn, you'll fail at love. Fail at love, the other tests don't count
"We really love only once or twice in our lives. Treasure that love. That's my secret of marriage."
November 19, 2017
این کتاب تو این برهه از زندگی و با شرایط کنونی من کتاب واقعا دوست داشتنی بود:).....با اینکه با همه عقاید نویسنده موافق نبودم اما درصد قابل توجحی از عقایدش برام جذابیت داشت و باهاش موافق بودم:)
October 25, 2021
باخ از نویسنده های مورد علاقه منه ...این کتاب هم مثل اوهام ،گفتگو های نویسنده با راهنمای درونی خود در قالب کودکی بازگشته خود بود تا هر آنچه که در هنگام تولد بر این کره خاکی فراموش کرده ،باز به یاد بیاره .
این کتاب یه جورایی فلسفه بود اما خیلی شبیه اوهام بود و همین موجب شد لذت کمتری نسبت به اوهام ببرم .
این کتاب یه جورایی فلسفه بود اما خیلی شبیه اوهام بود و همین موجب شد لذت کمتری نسبت به اوهام ببرم .
July 29, 2024
I didn't actually finish it. When I was growing up in the 80's, Bach was a best-selling author to whom many of us ran when we realized that we were "out-of-the-box" thinkers. I can't speak for everyone who dog-eared a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull or Illusions, but I remember thinking later "oh, that's new age mumbo-jumbo for teens." Something to flip through for nostalgia reasons. But this book kinda fell into my lap and I well--my curiosity was sparked. Had he evolved with the readers who pored over his 70's and 80's work, or was he still--well--self-righteous and smarmy? The answer is mostly to the right of the equation. The basic schtick is "what if you could meet yourself when you were a tyke?" It almost works, because most of us do forget so much of our childhood. It does a good job of jogging these memories. But Bach's relationship with his semi-fictional wife is nauseating. Turns out the real Bach's been divorced numerous times. I'm sure he'd drive a woman crazy...maybe even moreso than Tarantino.
July 20, 2015
donated to The Smith Family. 20.2.15
In this warm adventure of the mind and soul, Richard Bach approaches eternal questions, such as Who are we? What do we want to get out of our lives? What are we doing to achieve this? Do we have to be victims, rather than masters, of circumstance? How do we learn to love? Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit is a diary that combines childhood memories and reflections about how to search for meaning in life. It is based on talking with your inner child. Lost me at the 3/4 mark...
In this warm adventure of the mind and soul, Richard Bach approaches eternal questions, such as Who are we? What do we want to get out of our lives? What are we doing to achieve this? Do we have to be victims, rather than masters, of circumstance? How do we learn to love? Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit is a diary that combines childhood memories and reflections about how to search for meaning in life. It is based on talking with your inner child. Lost me at the 3/4 mark...
January 25, 2016
This was a terrible translation. I couldn't finish the book because of it. The funny thing about it is that I know the person who translated it. Should I tell her?
January 2, 2022
¡Que lindo arrancar el año con un libro de Richard!
"Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know."
"Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know."
July 2, 2024
“You're a fine boy. When you want to learn something, you are very serious about it.”
As a kid I was full of fantasies: wishes and dreams, designs for the way things ought to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my dreams I remember as fact, and some of the facts I remember as dreams.
Well, you're not a different person to him. He thinks you'll never forget him, that you'll do anything to help him learn how to live. He’s desperate to find what you know.”
“I don’t remember any promise.”
The angel looked at me as though I had sold my soul.
I opened the book at random.
An important part of your work environment is the provision for employment benefits. A good retirement plan is as good as a higher salary, and an automatic cost-of-living adjustment is the same as money in the bank. What about finding what you love to do, and
letting that be your business?
Try again.
Everything you do reflects on your family. Before you do anything that might embarrass them, think: Will my family be happy if I'm caught doing this?
Oh, my. Third time’s got to be the winner.
God's watching. Time will come He'll ask: Were you a good citizen? Tell Him that at least you tried.
I swallowed, suddenly nervous, turned pages. The kid wants to know what I’ve learned in fifty years, and he gets this? How can an angel write such hellish ideas?
You create your own reality, so be sure to create a happy one. Sacrifice yourself for others, and they will be nice to you.
I can’t figure whether you're insane to believe that or insane to think I do! Either way you are crazy putting this in a book for an innocent child.
“Shepherd, the little guy had a dream! He had a grand idea, to find what life he’d live if he didn’t have to spend half a century sifting truth from lies!
“OUT! GET THE GOD-DARN HECK OUT OF HERE YOU CARELESS SELFISH MISERABLE SO-CALLED GROWN-UP HATEFUL PERSON I HOPE I NEVER TURN INTO! GET OUT AND NEVER COME BACK AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”
“You locked me in here and you left me alone! You didn’t care if I screamed or cried, you didn’t hear you didn’t care,” he said.
“You think just because I live in your mind I don’t matter I don’t hurt I don’t need you to protect me and teach me and love me, WELL, I DO! You think I’m not real I’m not living I’m not scared of what you'll do to me, WELL, I AM!”
Lean into your fears, I wished I could tell him, dare them to do their worst and cut them down when they try. If you don’t, they'll clone themselves, Dickie, they’ll mushroom till they surround you, choke the road to the life you want. Every turn you fear is empty air, dressed to look like jagged hell.
Easy for me to say; I’d lived through them all. Not so easy for him.
If I’m afraid today, I thought, what do I most wish to hear from the wise and future me?
Could I say that for him now, with the faintest hope he’d understand?
Not likely, I thought, when I’m the one he wants to fight.
WHY DON’T I just forget the whole thing? I have a lot better things to do with my life than to play with my Own imagination.”
No, I mean really. What do I possibly have to gain from closing my eyes and pretending I’m friends with a little person who owns my childhood? What do I care about ancient history?”
“Doesn't bother me,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a spineless coward, afraid to admit you’ve got any hint of feeling or caring or any other human emotion, that you don’t realize you ever were a child, think you’re some walk-in from outer space. You’re a good cook, and that’s what matters in a husband.”
What am I so afraid of? Who’s running my mind, after all?
“I’ve always thought you were crazy,” she said. “Don’t make me change.”
I blinked at him. “What about the way the universe works?”
“You're making it up,” he said. “I want to know what you know.”
“Don’t label age. Don’t say, ‘I’m seven,’ or ‘I’m ninety.’ As soon as you tell yourself, ‘I’m ageless!,’ there’s nothing to contrast, and the weird feeling’s gone. Really. Try it.”
“If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body,” I said, “and if our thought about body is that its condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.”
Is this growing up, when you have to do what other people do? I don’t like what’s happening here.
This jerk thinks he’s gonna tell you what you do and what you don’t do? What does he mean, You have to? You don’t have to nothin’ if you don’t want to! This clown’s trying to tell YOU to do what HE wants?
Storming out, slamming the door behind me, I watched as astonished as the two boys. Who is this wildman took me over? That's not just overdoing things a little bit that’s somebody Ive never seen, lunged from behind grabbed me threw me out of the way didn’t care what I thought, what anybody thought he is super darn MAD!
I blinked, smiled a little, laughed out loud, walking fast. That guy is ... ferocious!
And he’s me! He’s on my side! Who are you, guy? Nobody forces you to do anything. Get that, Dick? Ever! Nobody! Not Mike or Jack or Mom or Dad or anybody in your life forces you to do what you do not want to do!
My jaw dropped open. You care about me!
Lots of levels of yourself, and you can call on us when you want. Nobody knows you, nobody really knows you, but us. You can destroy yourself or you can fly beyond the stars, and nobody cares, nobody stays with you through it all but us! After a minute I thought thanks for saving me, back there.
Sorry I’m dumb. There's a lot to learn.
Otherwise we're feelings, intuition, conscience.
“I’m in command,” I said, a last confirmation.
We'd give our lives for you, sir, but in different ways, and the Second thinks more in blacks and whites than the rest of us.
When he sees you in danger, he pretty well comes out swinging, sir.”
“The rest of you don’t?”
“We're each of us different.”
My whole life I’d felt alone. I’d been a quiet kid with a vague something, something powerful and good, fashioned about me that I couldn’t understand.
All at once I knew. The something was my ship, and her secret crew. Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and
rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I’m master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell’s own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.
“We didn’t tell, sir,” came the answer, “because you didn’t ask.”
If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body, and if our thought about body is that it’s condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.
But inside, are you a child? Inside, do you feel like a child?”
“What? You take over, you make my decisions for me, I follow all your directions and when you smash my ship on the rocks you promise to feel bad? If it’s my life getting wrecked, I'll steer it myself, thank you!”
“No. I read so much because I have to stay ahead of you. If I’m going to lead the way, I have to stay ahead, don’t I?
“But what's it got to do with my life as an Apparent Human Being here on the Appearance of Earth? Your Is is nice, Richard,” he said, “but so what?” How many thousands of times has it happened to me, that it suddenly matters what someone else thinks, or what someone else might decide to do?
I’m nobody’s leader but my own. I would frankly feel better if you stopped caring who I am and what I believe and why I’m different from all your other futures. I owe you information, and an answer to your curiosity. I do not owe you a conversion to my way of thinking which may all be lies.
What's the difference between victims of circumstance, trapped in lives they didn’t ask for, and masters of choice, leading lives they can change at will?”
“Victims are helpless,” he said. “Masters aren’t.”
“Even though you do everything that everyone expects you to do: You’re a law-abiding citizen, you’re the perfect husband and father, you vote, you give to charity, you’re kind to animals. You live what they expect and you die from so what?” Because you never chose your life, Dickie! You never asked
for change, you never asked what you loved and you never found it, you never hurled yourself into the world that mattered most to you, never fought dragons that you thought could eat you up, never inched yourself out on cliffsides clinging by the tips of your skill a thousand feet over destruction because your life was there and you had to bring it home from terror! Choice, Dickie! Choose what you love and chase it top speed and I your future do solemnly promise that you will never die from so what!”
“Dickie, when did safety become your ambition? Running from safety is the only way to make your last word Yes!”
I chose this minute to happen to me! I built this life! I wanted it more than anything else, I crawled and walked and ran to get it and now it’s here!
With every choice you risk the life you would have had; with every decision, you lose it. Sure, an alternate Dickie in an alternate world splits away and lives what you might have chosen, but that’s his choice, not yours. In school and business and marriage, in any adventure you pick, if you care what your last words will be, you trust what you know and you dare toward your hope.”
“If you want security,” I said, “you’ve come to the wrong arena. The only security is Life Is, and that’s all that matters. Absolute, unchanging, perfect. But Security in Appearances? Even the sycamore falls to dust, some day. The wood disintegrates, the symbol vanishes, not the spirit of its life. ”
Life is choice and I can change appearances without any limits.
“When masters don’t like the way things seem to be, Richard, why don’t they just stop breathing? Why don’t they just quit the world of Appearances when they run into a really hard problem, and go home?”
Here’s what you do: You keep working, and you watch for coincidence to come strolling your way. Watch carefully, for it always comes in disguise.”“And you follow that coincidence!”
“We work like crazy to change it, but our wall remains brick, and it gets if anything harder than ever. We've checked: There's no secret door, no ladder, no shovel to dig under ... solid brick. “Then be still and listen. Is that a faint muffled chugging be- hind us? Has yon bulldozer operator left an engine running during her lunch break and the machine slipped into double compound low gear? Is the machine coincidentally rumbling toward our wall? “Remember that this world is not reality. It’s a playground of appearances on which we practice overcoming seems-to-be with our knowing of Is. The Principle of Coincidence is a power tool that promises, in this playground, to take us to the other
side of our wall.””
Every major turn of my life pivoted on some coincidence.”
Like attracts like. It’ll surprise you as long as you live. Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your next brick wall.”
The game is to remember who we are. How can we learn unless we practice?
Does he want a trouble-free future? I thought.
“Okay,” I said. “Now stay in that world for a month. Two months. A year. Two years. Three. How does it feel?”
“I want to learn something new. I want to do something different.”
We like remembering what we already know. When you hear your favorite music, or watch a good movie over again, or read your favorite story, you know what it’s going to sound like, don’t you, what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to turn out? The fun comes from living it over again, as many
times as you want. Same with our powers. First we dimly remember, and timid, we try Choice; the Principle of Coincidence; Whatever We Hold in Thought Comes True in Our Experience; Like Attracts Like; we experiment with the Law of Changing Appearances, to make our outer world reflect our
inner.
“But that’s why I’m talking to you! I’m not sure who it is I want to be!”
I frowned then, in the silence, at a puzzle I couldn’t solve.
“That,” I said, “can stand between you.”
“We build our personal world calm or wild according to what we want to live. We can weave utter peace in the midst of chaos. We can destroy in the midst of paradise. Depends on how we shape our spirit.”
Can’t you imagine that there may be some things over which you have no control? That there may be some completely different scheme — that life just happened, for no reason, no matter what you think or“don’t think, or the whole planet's an experiment by saucer-people watching in a microscope?
“Too dull, Captain, no control. Too boring. When I go along for the ride, I feel useless, I’m discontent. It’s no fun flying when I can’t steer the plane; I’d rather bail out and walk. So long as the saucer-people stay cool and cunning, so long as they let me think I’m master of my own little fate, I’ll play their game. But the minute they pull my strings, I cut ‘em.”
“Laugh if you must,” I told him, “go ahead, call me a zany. But a hundred years from now somebody’s going to print those words in Modern Quantum Theory, and nobody’s going to think
it’s mad.”
“You have to show up ... Absolutely essential. We have to show up, ready to play, consciousness tuned.”
“NO! The harder it is, the more fun! If there were no risk, if you knew you couldn't lose, if you knew the ending, would the game still be fun?”
Get this in mind early: We never grow up. We know nothing till intuition agrees.
All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.
Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.
“It is always okay for us to do what we believe is right. No exceptions.”
If we must lose wife or husband when we live to our highest right, we lose an unhappy marriage as well, and we gain ourselves. But if a marriage is born between two already self discovered, what a lovely adventure begins, hurricanes and all! He'll say Why do you think we're here? and I'll tell him I think we’re here to express love, a million different tests for us to show it, a million more when we fail, a million more when we pass. And nowhere more tests, every minute of every day, than in year after year of intimate daily life with one other soul. I'll tell him real marriage isn’t two people dashing across a bridge in rice and ribbons, it’s discovering after a lifetime that they've built the bridge together, with their own hands. when you look at any- body long-term, we really love only once or twice in our lives. Treasure that love. That’s my secret of marriage.
You and I chose to be born in this belief of place and time, Dickie, and then we stood at the gate of consciousness, screening, deciding whether to engage or withdraw from every suggestion, from every idea and advancement and destruction that our time offers. We paint a perfect unique digital portrait of who we shall be, each yes every no is one tiny dot of our picture. The more decisive we are, the
clearer our painting. Everything in the world of my consciousness, which is the only world that exists for me on earth, gets there through my consent. Whatever I don’t care for, I’m free to change. So there’s no whining, no complaining that I’m suffering because somebody else let me down. I’m the one to fix it, not them.”
You’re an advanced soul, remember. So right now, this minute, let go of self-preservation, let go of rules, stop caring whether you live or die. This is a world of appearances and you have a different home, a deeper known-and-loved than earth, to which you will be glad to return.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ve stopped caring.
I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything from earth. I’m
ready to go home.”
“Here come the assassins to your door. Are you frightened?”
“No,” he said, dreaming. “They're not my killers, they’re my friends. We're actors in a play. We choose our parts, we play them out.”
“They're drawing their swords. Do you fear them?”
“T love them,” he said.
“There,” I said. “Now you know what unconditional love feels like. You don’t have to be a saint, anyone can do it; let go of spacetime and it doesn’t matter whether they kill you or not.”
It loves who we are, not who we pretend to be.
“So the only way for Love to be unconditional,” he said at last, “is when it doesn’t care about our games.” “Doesn't care about games, doesn’t care about change based goals,” I said. “Not self-preservation, not justice, not rescue, not morals, not improvement, not education, not progress.
Absolute. Total. Unconditional. Love.
“If everyone were actors, we’d open the Yellow Pages and there'd be just one listing, one category: A for Actor. No flight instructors, no toymakers, no attorneys, no police or doctors or retail stores or construction companies, no studios, no producers. I screw it up from time to time, but my job’s taken. Everybody’s job is taken, Captain, except yours.”
“No matter how I look at it, it keeps coming out that morality is up to us!”
“Thinking is not a crime.”
“And if it were, you'd probably do it anyway.”
Because a name is a label,” he said, “and as soon as there’s a label the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing and instead of living by a theme of ideas people begin dying for labels.
“Dickie,” I said. “Pickle-ball, chess, foils or épées or sabers, track or field or pool or range. Pick your test, pick your age. Take nineteen. Twenty-eight? Forty. I will take you on at any be- lief of any age you pick, and I swear ... I'll thrash you flat!
The world had too many problems before you came and it does not need another. No one cares about who you are or what you think. Every important idea has already been thought, every important book has been written, every lovely painting painted, every discovery made, every song sung, film produced, conversation finished. Every important life has been lived. You do not matter and you never will.
No one cares about me, and it is selfish conceit to care about myself. There are billions alive on this planet, I arrived without an invitation, the others will let me stay if 1 am quiet and obedient and don’t eat much. Most of all quiet.” Correct. Everyone is separate from everyone else. All knowledge travels in words and numbers. You know nothing until someone teaches you. Everyone ol
You do not live for yourself, you live to please others, to help others.
As a kid I was full of fantasies: wishes and dreams, designs for the way things ought to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my dreams I remember as fact, and some of the facts I remember as dreams.
Well, you're not a different person to him. He thinks you'll never forget him, that you'll do anything to help him learn how to live. He’s desperate to find what you know.”
“I don’t remember any promise.”
The angel looked at me as though I had sold my soul.
I opened the book at random.
An important part of your work environment is the provision for employment benefits. A good retirement plan is as good as a higher salary, and an automatic cost-of-living adjustment is the same as money in the bank. What about finding what you love to do, and
letting that be your business?
Try again.
Everything you do reflects on your family. Before you do anything that might embarrass them, think: Will my family be happy if I'm caught doing this?
Oh, my. Third time’s got to be the winner.
God's watching. Time will come He'll ask: Were you a good citizen? Tell Him that at least you tried.
I swallowed, suddenly nervous, turned pages. The kid wants to know what I’ve learned in fifty years, and he gets this? How can an angel write such hellish ideas?
You create your own reality, so be sure to create a happy one. Sacrifice yourself for others, and they will be nice to you.
I can’t figure whether you're insane to believe that or insane to think I do! Either way you are crazy putting this in a book for an innocent child.
“Shepherd, the little guy had a dream! He had a grand idea, to find what life he’d live if he didn’t have to spend half a century sifting truth from lies!
“OUT! GET THE GOD-DARN HECK OUT OF HERE YOU CARELESS SELFISH MISERABLE SO-CALLED GROWN-UP HATEFUL PERSON I HOPE I NEVER TURN INTO! GET OUT AND NEVER COME BACK AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”
“You locked me in here and you left me alone! You didn’t care if I screamed or cried, you didn’t hear you didn’t care,” he said.
“You think just because I live in your mind I don’t matter I don’t hurt I don’t need you to protect me and teach me and love me, WELL, I DO! You think I’m not real I’m not living I’m not scared of what you'll do to me, WELL, I AM!”
Lean into your fears, I wished I could tell him, dare them to do their worst and cut them down when they try. If you don’t, they'll clone themselves, Dickie, they’ll mushroom till they surround you, choke the road to the life you want. Every turn you fear is empty air, dressed to look like jagged hell.
Easy for me to say; I’d lived through them all. Not so easy for him.
If I’m afraid today, I thought, what do I most wish to hear from the wise and future me?
Could I say that for him now, with the faintest hope he’d understand?
Not likely, I thought, when I’m the one he wants to fight.
WHY DON’T I just forget the whole thing? I have a lot better things to do with my life than to play with my Own imagination.”
No, I mean really. What do I possibly have to gain from closing my eyes and pretending I’m friends with a little person who owns my childhood? What do I care about ancient history?”
“Doesn't bother me,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a spineless coward, afraid to admit you’ve got any hint of feeling or caring or any other human emotion, that you don’t realize you ever were a child, think you’re some walk-in from outer space. You’re a good cook, and that’s what matters in a husband.”
What am I so afraid of? Who’s running my mind, after all?
“I’ve always thought you were crazy,” she said. “Don’t make me change.”
I blinked at him. “What about the way the universe works?”
“You're making it up,” he said. “I want to know what you know.”
“Don’t label age. Don’t say, ‘I’m seven,’ or ‘I’m ninety.’ As soon as you tell yourself, ‘I’m ageless!,’ there’s nothing to contrast, and the weird feeling’s gone. Really. Try it.”
“If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body,” I said, “and if our thought about body is that its condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.”
Is this growing up, when you have to do what other people do? I don’t like what’s happening here.
This jerk thinks he’s gonna tell you what you do and what you don’t do? What does he mean, You have to? You don’t have to nothin’ if you don’t want to! This clown’s trying to tell YOU to do what HE wants?
Storming out, slamming the door behind me, I watched as astonished as the two boys. Who is this wildman took me over? That's not just overdoing things a little bit that’s somebody Ive never seen, lunged from behind grabbed me threw me out of the way didn’t care what I thought, what anybody thought he is super darn MAD!
I blinked, smiled a little, laughed out loud, walking fast. That guy is ... ferocious!
And he’s me! He’s on my side! Who are you, guy? Nobody forces you to do anything. Get that, Dick? Ever! Nobody! Not Mike or Jack or Mom or Dad or anybody in your life forces you to do what you do not want to do!
My jaw dropped open. You care about me!
Lots of levels of yourself, and you can call on us when you want. Nobody knows you, nobody really knows you, but us. You can destroy yourself or you can fly beyond the stars, and nobody cares, nobody stays with you through it all but us! After a minute I thought thanks for saving me, back there.
Sorry I’m dumb. There's a lot to learn.
Otherwise we're feelings, intuition, conscience.
“I’m in command,” I said, a last confirmation.
We'd give our lives for you, sir, but in different ways, and the Second thinks more in blacks and whites than the rest of us.
When he sees you in danger, he pretty well comes out swinging, sir.”
“The rest of you don’t?”
“We're each of us different.”
My whole life I’d felt alone. I’d been a quiet kid with a vague something, something powerful and good, fashioned about me that I couldn’t understand.
All at once I knew. The something was my ship, and her secret crew. Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and
rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I’m master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell’s own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.
“We didn’t tell, sir,” came the answer, “because you didn’t ask.”
If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body, and if our thought about body is that it’s condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.
But inside, are you a child? Inside, do you feel like a child?”
“What? You take over, you make my decisions for me, I follow all your directions and when you smash my ship on the rocks you promise to feel bad? If it’s my life getting wrecked, I'll steer it myself, thank you!”
“No. I read so much because I have to stay ahead of you. If I’m going to lead the way, I have to stay ahead, don’t I?
“But what's it got to do with my life as an Apparent Human Being here on the Appearance of Earth? Your Is is nice, Richard,” he said, “but so what?” How many thousands of times has it happened to me, that it suddenly matters what someone else thinks, or what someone else might decide to do?
I’m nobody’s leader but my own. I would frankly feel better if you stopped caring who I am and what I believe and why I’m different from all your other futures. I owe you information, and an answer to your curiosity. I do not owe you a conversion to my way of thinking which may all be lies.
What's the difference between victims of circumstance, trapped in lives they didn’t ask for, and masters of choice, leading lives they can change at will?”
“Victims are helpless,” he said. “Masters aren’t.”
“Even though you do everything that everyone expects you to do: You’re a law-abiding citizen, you’re the perfect husband and father, you vote, you give to charity, you’re kind to animals. You live what they expect and you die from so what?” Because you never chose your life, Dickie! You never asked
for change, you never asked what you loved and you never found it, you never hurled yourself into the world that mattered most to you, never fought dragons that you thought could eat you up, never inched yourself out on cliffsides clinging by the tips of your skill a thousand feet over destruction because your life was there and you had to bring it home from terror! Choice, Dickie! Choose what you love and chase it top speed and I your future do solemnly promise that you will never die from so what!”
“Dickie, when did safety become your ambition? Running from safety is the only way to make your last word Yes!”
I chose this minute to happen to me! I built this life! I wanted it more than anything else, I crawled and walked and ran to get it and now it’s here!
With every choice you risk the life you would have had; with every decision, you lose it. Sure, an alternate Dickie in an alternate world splits away and lives what you might have chosen, but that’s his choice, not yours. In school and business and marriage, in any adventure you pick, if you care what your last words will be, you trust what you know and you dare toward your hope.”
“If you want security,” I said, “you’ve come to the wrong arena. The only security is Life Is, and that’s all that matters. Absolute, unchanging, perfect. But Security in Appearances? Even the sycamore falls to dust, some day. The wood disintegrates, the symbol vanishes, not the spirit of its life. ”
Life is choice and I can change appearances without any limits.
“When masters don’t like the way things seem to be, Richard, why don’t they just stop breathing? Why don’t they just quit the world of Appearances when they run into a really hard problem, and go home?”
Here’s what you do: You keep working, and you watch for coincidence to come strolling your way. Watch carefully, for it always comes in disguise.”“And you follow that coincidence!”
“We work like crazy to change it, but our wall remains brick, and it gets if anything harder than ever. We've checked: There's no secret door, no ladder, no shovel to dig under ... solid brick. “Then be still and listen. Is that a faint muffled chugging be- hind us? Has yon bulldozer operator left an engine running during her lunch break and the machine slipped into double compound low gear? Is the machine coincidentally rumbling toward our wall? “Remember that this world is not reality. It’s a playground of appearances on which we practice overcoming seems-to-be with our knowing of Is. The Principle of Coincidence is a power tool that promises, in this playground, to take us to the other
side of our wall.””
Every major turn of my life pivoted on some coincidence.”
Like attracts like. It’ll surprise you as long as you live. Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your next brick wall.”
The game is to remember who we are. How can we learn unless we practice?
Does he want a trouble-free future? I thought.
“Okay,” I said. “Now stay in that world for a month. Two months. A year. Two years. Three. How does it feel?”
“I want to learn something new. I want to do something different.”
We like remembering what we already know. When you hear your favorite music, or watch a good movie over again, or read your favorite story, you know what it’s going to sound like, don’t you, what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to turn out? The fun comes from living it over again, as many
times as you want. Same with our powers. First we dimly remember, and timid, we try Choice; the Principle of Coincidence; Whatever We Hold in Thought Comes True in Our Experience; Like Attracts Like; we experiment with the Law of Changing Appearances, to make our outer world reflect our
inner.
“But that’s why I’m talking to you! I’m not sure who it is I want to be!”
I frowned then, in the silence, at a puzzle I couldn’t solve.
“That,” I said, “can stand between you.”
“We build our personal world calm or wild according to what we want to live. We can weave utter peace in the midst of chaos. We can destroy in the midst of paradise. Depends on how we shape our spirit.”
Can’t you imagine that there may be some things over which you have no control? That there may be some completely different scheme — that life just happened, for no reason, no matter what you think or“don’t think, or the whole planet's an experiment by saucer-people watching in a microscope?
“Too dull, Captain, no control. Too boring. When I go along for the ride, I feel useless, I’m discontent. It’s no fun flying when I can’t steer the plane; I’d rather bail out and walk. So long as the saucer-people stay cool and cunning, so long as they let me think I’m master of my own little fate, I’ll play their game. But the minute they pull my strings, I cut ‘em.”
“Laugh if you must,” I told him, “go ahead, call me a zany. But a hundred years from now somebody’s going to print those words in Modern Quantum Theory, and nobody’s going to think
it’s mad.”
“You have to show up ... Absolutely essential. We have to show up, ready to play, consciousness tuned.”
“NO! The harder it is, the more fun! If there were no risk, if you knew you couldn't lose, if you knew the ending, would the game still be fun?”
Get this in mind early: We never grow up. We know nothing till intuition agrees.
All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.
Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.
“It is always okay for us to do what we believe is right. No exceptions.”
If we must lose wife or husband when we live to our highest right, we lose an unhappy marriage as well, and we gain ourselves. But if a marriage is born between two already self discovered, what a lovely adventure begins, hurricanes and all! He'll say Why do you think we're here? and I'll tell him I think we’re here to express love, a million different tests for us to show it, a million more when we fail, a million more when we pass. And nowhere more tests, every minute of every day, than in year after year of intimate daily life with one other soul. I'll tell him real marriage isn’t two people dashing across a bridge in rice and ribbons, it’s discovering after a lifetime that they've built the bridge together, with their own hands. when you look at any- body long-term, we really love only once or twice in our lives. Treasure that love. That’s my secret of marriage.
You and I chose to be born in this belief of place and time, Dickie, and then we stood at the gate of consciousness, screening, deciding whether to engage or withdraw from every suggestion, from every idea and advancement and destruction that our time offers. We paint a perfect unique digital portrait of who we shall be, each yes every no is one tiny dot of our picture. The more decisive we are, the
clearer our painting. Everything in the world of my consciousness, which is the only world that exists for me on earth, gets there through my consent. Whatever I don’t care for, I’m free to change. So there’s no whining, no complaining that I’m suffering because somebody else let me down. I’m the one to fix it, not them.”
You’re an advanced soul, remember. So right now, this minute, let go of self-preservation, let go of rules, stop caring whether you live or die. This is a world of appearances and you have a different home, a deeper known-and-loved than earth, to which you will be glad to return.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ve stopped caring.
I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything from earth. I’m
ready to go home.”
“Here come the assassins to your door. Are you frightened?”
“No,” he said, dreaming. “They're not my killers, they’re my friends. We're actors in a play. We choose our parts, we play them out.”
“They're drawing their swords. Do you fear them?”
“T love them,” he said.
“There,” I said. “Now you know what unconditional love feels like. You don’t have to be a saint, anyone can do it; let go of spacetime and it doesn’t matter whether they kill you or not.”
It loves who we are, not who we pretend to be.
“So the only way for Love to be unconditional,” he said at last, “is when it doesn’t care about our games.” “Doesn't care about games, doesn’t care about change based goals,” I said. “Not self-preservation, not justice, not rescue, not morals, not improvement, not education, not progress.
Absolute. Total. Unconditional. Love.
“If everyone were actors, we’d open the Yellow Pages and there'd be just one listing, one category: A for Actor. No flight instructors, no toymakers, no attorneys, no police or doctors or retail stores or construction companies, no studios, no producers. I screw it up from time to time, but my job’s taken. Everybody’s job is taken, Captain, except yours.”
“No matter how I look at it, it keeps coming out that morality is up to us!”
“Thinking is not a crime.”
“And if it were, you'd probably do it anyway.”
Because a name is a label,” he said, “and as soon as there’s a label the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing and instead of living by a theme of ideas people begin dying for labels.
“Dickie,” I said. “Pickle-ball, chess, foils or épées or sabers, track or field or pool or range. Pick your test, pick your age. Take nineteen. Twenty-eight? Forty. I will take you on at any be- lief of any age you pick, and I swear ... I'll thrash you flat!
The world had too many problems before you came and it does not need another. No one cares about who you are or what you think. Every important idea has already been thought, every important book has been written, every lovely painting painted, every discovery made, every song sung, film produced, conversation finished. Every important life has been lived. You do not matter and you never will.
No one cares about me, and it is selfish conceit to care about myself. There are billions alive on this planet, I arrived without an invitation, the others will let me stay if 1 am quiet and obedient and don’t eat much. Most of all quiet.” Correct. Everyone is separate from everyone else. All knowledge travels in words and numbers. You know nothing until someone teaches you. Everyone ol
You do not live for yourself, you live to please others, to help others.
February 11, 2018
There were some enjoyable and insightful bits in this book, but ultimately - not as good as Jonathan Livingston Seagull or The Bridge Across Forever: A Lovestory. In this book, Richard connects with his 9-year-old self and decides to share what he's learned as an adult - and in the process he learns some new things himself. As always, his writing about flying is wonderful :) and I hadn't known that he spent time writing manuals for DC-8s and C-124s. He has some good insights about life and personal happiness, but some of it gets a little too woo-woo for me, and even though *he's* writing the book, I have to agree more with his depiction of his wife Leslie's view of relationships (which doesn't match his).
June 15, 2011
This is the second Richard Bach book that I've read after Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Thought-provoking, poignant, and honest, this novel tackles spiritual issues about the inner child in us that continues to live no matter how old we may be, or no matter how much we want to just forget him and treat him like a remnant of the past. It's a pretty deep read, and sometimes it sends me thinking about certain situations in life where a child version of myself could remedy the problems that a grown up me could not.
Giving it three stars! It's a good read, but can't remember much about the enjoyment factor. But then again it's been a long while since I last read this book. Maybe I'll give it another try someday. :)
Giving it three stars! It's a good read, but can't remember much about the enjoyment factor. But then again it's been a long while since I last read this book. Maybe I'll give it another try someday. :)
May 11, 2014
It was tolerable, but not the best thing Richard Bach has written. I would definitely recommend "Illusions" still, to anyone seeking a great philosophical journey in fictional form. Running From Safety was just a reiteration of many of the same principles, with a less grabbing storyline. It probably wasn't all that bad, but I think Richard Bach has an amazing outlook on Life. It's just that once you have read it in one book, they all kind of repeat the same general messages.
July 1, 2013
Even though I am a big fan of Jonathan Livingston, I did not like this book at all. Knowing Bach divorced a few years after writing this book, I found all the references to 'soul mates' disturbing. The basic ideas were already covered in Illusions. I can see why Bach stopped writing books.
April 23, 2015
Iš naujo prisiminiau, ką reiškia pasiimti knygą ir tris dienas jos nepaleist iš rankų, kol nepabaigi. Bacho mintys tokios artimos, tokios negirdėtos, o lyg iš kažkur žinomos. Jo knygos visad užburia, ne išimtis ir šita.
December 26, 2022
Эта книга показалась мне немного сложноватой для восприятия. Были конечно прекрасные моменты, которые я больше всего люблю у Баха, но иногда я поражалась как он может говорить с ребенком таким сложным языком. Их мысленные эксперименты мне не всегда были понятны. Но в целом всё равно хорошо.
March 15, 2015
Tentativo fallito di bissare il successo de "Il gabbiano Jonathan Livingstone".
December 10, 2013
يك كلمه، يك كلمه را به خاطر بسپار و ديگر مشكلی نخواهی داشت.
كلمه "متفاوت" را به ياد داشته باش.
تو با هر كس ديگر در دنيا فرق داری...!
كلمه "متفاوت" را به ياد داشته باش.
تو با هر كس ديگر در دنيا فرق داری...!
December 28, 2017
Es uno de los libros más lindos que he leído, ya que es muy simple pero a la vez demasiado maravilloso. Tiene un final que me dejó realmente feliz y sin duda con unas grandes alas para vivir.
December 29, 2016
Finishing this book on a plane is somehow really appropriate, I didn't like all of it but I liked the concept and some of the quotes.
February 3, 2018
Reading Challenge - First book of 2018 - Done!!!
Човек или планира предстоящото, или се бори с наличното; тревогата е губене на време!
Благодаря, Абс! <3
Човек или планира предстоящото, или се бори с наличното; тревогата е губене на време!
Благодаря, Абс! <3
December 26, 2018
The essense: If we are afraid to choose anything but what we have got, what good is choice? Choosing something new is Running from Safety.
Read
April 6, 2007Diki...he can show you the way of truth...just find him...search on yourself.
August 5, 2023
[Relectura 2023]
No, no, no... el título en inglés de esta obra es "Running from safety", o sea "Huyendo de la seguridad". Si bien, el libro con cualquiera de los dos títulos en castellano, seguiría siendo un poco de auto-ayuda (principalmente para el mismo autor), lo idea de huir de la seguridad es mucho más acertada que eso de las alas... en fin, es un poco tarde para mi tratar entender cómo las editoriales y/o traductores toman sus decisiones. Bello libro, lleno de puntos a favor en tanto a hacer una recapitulación de lo que uno fue, es, y/o será, un sentarse y pensar ¿dónde estuve? ¿dónde estoy? ¿dónde estaré?. Puedo no compartir la filosofía/religión propia/cosmovisión de Richard Bach, pero no por eso deja de ser interesante; al igual que cualquier otra filosofía, religión o cosmovisión que busque expandir el espíritu y remover un poquito nuestras anteojeras. Es verdad que a partir de un punto el autor solo le importa dar a conocer su verdad respecto a su interpretación propia de la metempsicosis, y eso podría restar... pero a mi juicio (obviamente), entre suma y resta, la historia resulta muy bien. Ahora que lo pienso, en el libro hay varios "saltos de fe", de hecho parte con uno, literal, no metafórico. Eso es la historia: un gran salto de fe hacia el mejor "yo" que queramos ser. Cosa que en el lecho de muerte digamos: ¡sí! (5*)
Subrayado: (--spoilers--)
"Cómo le gustaría a Dickie estar volando ahora conmigo... ¡Esto podría enseñarle qué es lo importante en la vida! Buscas lo que amas y lo aprendes todo acerca de eso. Apuestas la vida a lo que sabes y huyes de lo seguro, lanzándote de tu montaña al aire, confiado en que el principio del vuelo te levantará, raudo, en una elevación que no se ve con los ojos."
.
"Me habría gustado poder decirle: «Apóyate en tus miedos, desafíalos a hacer lo peor que puedan y, cuando lo intenten, arráncalos de cuajo. Si no lo haces se multiplicarán, Dickie, se multiplicarán como los hongos hasta rodearte, bloqueando la ruta hacia la vida que deseas. Cada recodo que temes es aire vacío, disfrazado de escarpado infierno»."
.
"—Cuando eras pequeño, Wookie, ¿pensabas a veces que habías venido a la tierra desde las estrellas?"
.
"—(...) el hogar es cierto orden que nos es querido, donde no hay peligro en ser lo que uno es."
.
"—Pero ocurre, ¿no? Algo ocurre entre el momento en que nos sabemos especiales y después, cuando nos decimos creo que no y nos convertimos en un fracaso."
.
"—(...) Si haces muchas de las cosas que siempre soñaste hacer, no te queda lugar para sentirte mal."
.
"—¿Por qué no quiero respuestas?
—Porque las respuestas cambian. Tú no quieres tanto un millón de respuestas como unas cuantas preguntas para siempre. La preguntas son diamantes que se ponen contra la luz. Estudia una vida entera y verás diferentes colores en la misma joya. Las mismas preguntas formuladas otra vez, te dan las respuestas que necesitas en el momento exacto en que las necesitas.
Frunció el entrecejo, con los ojos fijos en la cima, sin detenerse.
—¿Preguntas como cuáles?
—Preguntas como: «¿Quién soy»."
.
"—Cuál es el Dios real, Dickie —pregunté—. ¿El cruel o el impotente?"
.
"Suspiré.
—¿Desde cuándo la seguridad ha sido tu ambición, Dickie? Huir de lo seguro: esa es la única manera de lograr que tu última palabra sea «¡Sí!»"
.
"¿Qué haces aquí, capitán, qué preferirías estar haciendoy por qué no estás haciendo eso en este momento?"
No, no, no... el título en inglés de esta obra es "Running from safety", o sea "Huyendo de la seguridad". Si bien, el libro con cualquiera de los dos títulos en castellano, seguiría siendo un poco de auto-ayuda (principalmente para el mismo autor), lo idea de huir de la seguridad es mucho más acertada que eso de las alas... en fin, es un poco tarde para mi tratar entender cómo las editoriales y/o traductores toman sus decisiones. Bello libro, lleno de puntos a favor en tanto a hacer una recapitulación de lo que uno fue, es, y/o será, un sentarse y pensar ¿dónde estuve? ¿dónde estoy? ¿dónde estaré?. Puedo no compartir la filosofía/religión propia/cosmovisión de Richard Bach, pero no por eso deja de ser interesante; al igual que cualquier otra filosofía, religión o cosmovisión que busque expandir el espíritu y remover un poquito nuestras anteojeras. Es verdad que a partir de un punto el autor solo le importa dar a conocer su verdad respecto a su interpretación propia de la metempsicosis, y eso podría restar... pero a mi juicio (obviamente), entre suma y resta, la historia resulta muy bien. Ahora que lo pienso, en el libro hay varios "saltos de fe", de hecho parte con uno, literal, no metafórico. Eso es la historia: un gran salto de fe hacia el mejor "yo" que queramos ser. Cosa que en el lecho de muerte digamos: ¡sí! (5*)
Subrayado: (--spoilers--)
"Cómo le gustaría a Dickie estar volando ahora conmigo... ¡Esto podría enseñarle qué es lo importante en la vida! Buscas lo que amas y lo aprendes todo acerca de eso. Apuestas la vida a lo que sabes y huyes de lo seguro, lanzándote de tu montaña al aire, confiado en que el principio del vuelo te levantará, raudo, en una elevación que no se ve con los ojos."
.
"Me habría gustado poder decirle: «Apóyate en tus miedos, desafíalos a hacer lo peor que puedan y, cuando lo intenten, arráncalos de cuajo. Si no lo haces se multiplicarán, Dickie, se multiplicarán como los hongos hasta rodearte, bloqueando la ruta hacia la vida que deseas. Cada recodo que temes es aire vacío, disfrazado de escarpado infierno»."
.
"—Cuando eras pequeño, Wookie, ¿pensabas a veces que habías venido a la tierra desde las estrellas?"
.
"—(...) el hogar es cierto orden que nos es querido, donde no hay peligro en ser lo que uno es."
.
"—Pero ocurre, ¿no? Algo ocurre entre el momento en que nos sabemos especiales y después, cuando nos decimos creo que no y nos convertimos en un fracaso."
.
"—(...) Si haces muchas de las cosas que siempre soñaste hacer, no te queda lugar para sentirte mal."
.
"—¿Por qué no quiero respuestas?
—Porque las respuestas cambian. Tú no quieres tanto un millón de respuestas como unas cuantas preguntas para siempre. La preguntas son diamantes que se ponen contra la luz. Estudia una vida entera y verás diferentes colores en la misma joya. Las mismas preguntas formuladas otra vez, te dan las respuestas que necesitas en el momento exacto en que las necesitas.
Frunció el entrecejo, con los ojos fijos en la cima, sin detenerse.
—¿Preguntas como cuáles?
—Preguntas como: «¿Quién soy»."
.
"—Cuál es el Dios real, Dickie —pregunté—. ¿El cruel o el impotente?"
.
"Suspiré.
—¿Desde cuándo la seguridad ha sido tu ambición, Dickie? Huir de lo seguro: esa es la única manera de lograr que tu última palabra sea «¡Sí!»"
.
"¿Qué haces aquí, capitán, qué preferirías estar haciendoy por qué no estás haciendo eso en este momento?"
July 14, 2020
"بدون شک برای همه ما پیش میآید، آنچه را که یاد گرفتهایم بستهبندی کرده و به صورت چیزهای آشنا پشت سر میگذاریم. جدایی از آنها لطفی ندارد ولی در درون خود به نحوی میدانیم که خداحافظی با ایمنی، امنیت بهتری را در آینده برایمان به ارمغان خواهد آورد.
این جریان چندبار در زندگی اتفاق میافتد؟! صدها بار؟!
امنیت خانواده را رها کرده برای بازی با غریبهها به زمین بازی میرویم، از دوستان همسایه بریده به صحنه مدرسه قدم میگذاریم، از ایمنی گوش دادن در کلاس به سوی دایره گزارش شفاهی خود میرویم، از سکوت و آرامش سکوی شیرجه برای انجام شیرجه خود را پرت میکنیم، از سهولت و روانی زبان مادری به زیر و بمهای مشکل زبان آلمانی روی میآوریم، از گرمای مطبوع وابستگی به سرمای سر پای خود ایستادن، از پیله کارآموزی به سوی گرداب کسب و کار، از پناهگاه زمین به سوی خطرهای لذتبخش پرواز، از اطمینان دوره تجرد به دوره طوفانی ازدواج و از پوشش فرسوده زندگی به سوی ماجرای ناخوشایند مرگ حرکت میکنیم.
هرگام در زندگی، با افتخار فرار از ایمنی به سوی تاریکی است و به تنها چیزی که میشود اعتماد کرد این ��ست که به درستی افکار خود اعتقاد داشته باشیم."
[ریچارد باخ]
این جریان چندبار در زندگی اتفاق میافتد؟! صدها بار؟!
امنیت خانواده را رها کرده برای بازی با غریبهها به زمین بازی میرویم، از دوستان همسایه بریده به صحنه مدرسه قدم میگذاریم، از ایمنی گوش دادن در کلاس به سوی دایره گزارش شفاهی خود میرویم، از سکوت و آرامش سکوی شیرجه برای انجام شیرجه خود را پرت میکنیم، از سهولت و روانی زبان مادری به زیر و بمهای مشکل زبان آلمانی روی میآوریم، از گرمای مطبوع وابستگی به سرمای سر پای خود ایستادن، از پیله کارآموزی به سوی گرداب کسب و کار، از پناهگاه زمین به سوی خطرهای لذتبخش پرواز، از اطمینان دوره تجرد به دوره طوفانی ازدواج و از پوشش فرسوده زندگی به سوی ماجرای ناخوشایند مرگ حرکت میکنیم.
هرگام در زندگی، با افتخار فرار از ایمنی به سوی تاریکی است و به تنها چیزی که میشود اعتماد کرد این ��ست که به درستی افکار خود اعتقاد داشته باشیم."
[ریچارد باخ]
May 30, 2018
***Lo leí en el 2006***
Me encanto este libro cuando lo leí. Su sinopsis es: Si hoy el niño que alguna vez fuimos nos preguntara qué es lo más importante que hemos aprendido a lo largo de nuestra vida, ¿qué le responderíamos? El autor aborda asombrosas ideas acerca de preguntas milenarias como: ¿quiénes somos? ¿Qué queremos hacer con nuestra vida y por qué no lo estamos haciendo? ¿Es indispensable que seamos víctimas de las circunstancias, y no sus amos? ¿Cómo aprendemos a amar? Alas para vivir es una suerte de diario en el que se combinan recuerdos de infancia y pensamientos sobre cómo encontrar un sentido a la vida.
Me encanto este libro cuando lo leí. Su sinopsis es: Si hoy el niño que alguna vez fuimos nos preguntara qué es lo más importante que hemos aprendido a lo largo de nuestra vida, ¿qué le responderíamos? El autor aborda asombrosas ideas acerca de preguntas milenarias como: ¿quiénes somos? ¿Qué queremos hacer con nuestra vida y por qué no lo estamos haciendo? ¿Es indispensable que seamos víctimas de las circunstancias, y no sus amos? ¿Cómo aprendemos a amar? Alas para vivir es una suerte de diario en el que se combinan recuerdos de infancia y pensamientos sobre cómo encontrar un sentido a la vida.
July 28, 2017
What intrigued me: Jeremy gave me this book as a gift when I left Red Wing.
What I liked: There are a number of thought provoking questions raised by this book. I took my time with it because there were a number of times I put it down to talk through some of the ideas with Clayton.
What I didn't like: Through out 3/4 of the book I kept thinking "eventually it will make sense." That never happened.
Favorite quote: “'And you speak only when spoken to?' 'In words, yes. Otherwise we're feelings, intuition, conscience.”
What I liked: There are a number of thought provoking questions raised by this book. I took my time with it because there were a number of times I put it down to talk through some of the ideas with Clayton.
What I didn't like: Through out 3/4 of the book I kept thinking "eventually it will make sense." That never happened.
Favorite quote: “'And you speak only when spoken to?' 'In words, yes. Otherwise we're feelings, intuition, conscience.”
November 5, 2017
I loved being introduced to ideas such as an Umbrologist - a physician who treats disorders of the shadow; imajons, conceptons, exhilarons...gloomons... and the line "Running from safety is the only way to make your last word yes" :D
If we just exclude reading chapter 41 (or scan through it ever so quickly) the flight would have been perfect (personal preference of course). Richard Bach books are always a great read and well worth a visit from time to time :)
If we just exclude reading chapter 41 (or scan through it ever so quickly) the flight would have been perfect (personal preference of course). Richard Bach books are always a great read and well worth a visit from time to time :)
December 16, 2017
Пътеводна звезда или пробуждащ камбанен звън?! При всички положения - нещо много стойностно.
През цялото време на четене изпитвах някакво задоволство, виждайки мислите и светоусещането ми изразени по толкова отчетлив и ясен начин. Мисля, че към тази книга ще се връщам периодично, за ��а се докосвам до насладата, която изпитах.
След Джонатан Ливингстън Чайката, това ще е втората книга, която ще прочета някой ден на децата си. : )
През цялото време на четене изпитвах някакво задоволство, виждайки мислите и светоусещането ми изразени по толкова отчетлив и ясен начин. Мисля, че към тази книга ще се връщам периодично, за ��а се докосвам до насладата, която изпитах.
След Джонатан Ливингстън Чайката, това ще е втората книга, която ще прочета някой ден на децата си. : )
October 23, 2018
WOW.
This book pierced me, changed me, mindf*cked me in the best possible way.
It’s like a a serious of bookgasms.
Im so grateful that I got to read it, want to own it NOW, want everyone I know and don’t know to read it, and to just to go back and start all over again right. This. Second.
I literally begged my boyfriend to read it with me, again, tonight, just a few pages, pleeeeease, pleeeease (pleading doggy eyes and ally.
So yeah, I feel strongly about it.
A must own.
This book pierced me, changed me, mindf*cked me in the best possible way.
It’s like a a serious of bookgasms.
Im so grateful that I got to read it, want to own it NOW, want everyone I know and don’t know to read it, and to just to go back and start all over again right. This. Second.
I literally begged my boyfriend to read it with me, again, tonight, just a few pages, pleeeeease, pleeeease (pleading doggy eyes and ally.
So yeah, I feel strongly about it.
A must own.
February 5, 2022
نباید به شرایط موجود و محیط امن دل بست و از تغییر هراس داشت. بیشتر اوقات برای پیشرفت در زندگی، ناچار باید از محیط، بار سفر بست. کودک باید آغوش امن مادر و محیط خانه را ترک کند و به مدرسه برود تا به تحصیل علم بپردازد. باید محیط نسبتا امن مدرسه را ترک کند و به محیط پر دلهره اجتماع قدم بگذارد تا زندگی مستقل خود را آغاز کند و این امر به نظر او در بسیاری از مراحل دیگر زندگی از جمله شغل، محل زیست و غیره نیز صادق است.
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