THE SOLITAIRE MYSTERY

THE SOLITAIRE MYSTERY


Jostein Gaarder



lines to think about:



'when you feel guilty, you tend to be a little more generous'



'my advice to those who are going to find themselves is:stay exactly where you are. Otherwise you are in great danger of losingyourself forever'

'the more beautiful a woman is, the more difficulty she has finding herself'



'I've thought a great deal about this. Dad came into the world because of afall of Man, but can't everyone trace the roots back to Adam and Eve? I knowthe comparison stumbles a little. One case revolves around apples and the otheraround cowberries. But the inner tube that brought Grandma and Grandpa togetherdoes look a little like the snake that tempted Adam and Eve'



'even though the the universe is huge, it doesn't necessarily mean that this planet is a pea'



'the best medicine for sorrow is anger'



'I agree that it is a bit of a mystery. There are five billion people livingon this planet. But you fall in love with one particular person, and you won'tswap her for any other'



'this (cockroach) is too fat for us to kill it, Hans Thomas.It's so big it has to be called an individual, and you never beat individuals to death, even if you do feel a little uncomfortable in their presence'



'life is one huge lottery where only the winning tickets are visible'



'when people are interested in the "supernatural", they suffer from remarkableblindness'



'I thinkthe whole universe is intended. You'll see there is some kind ofpurpose or other behind all the myriads of stars and galaxies'



'our lives are part5 of a unique adventure...most of us think the world is 'normal'and are constantly hunting for something abnormal- like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realise the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fitted together'



'if our brain was simple enough for us to understand it, we would be so stupidwe wouldn't be able to understand it after all'



'nothing of waht we create in our minds is aware of itself'



'there are always new days ahead'



'God is sitting in heaven laughing at us because we don't believe in Him. Even though he didn't leave his calling card behind, He did leave the world.I think that's fair enough'



'A Russian cosmonaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing Christianity.The brain surgeon was Christian, but the cosmonaut was't. "I have been in outerspace many times," bragged the cosmonaut,"but I have never seen any angels."The brain surgeon stared in amazement, but then he said, "And I have operatedon many intelligent brains, but I never seen a single thought."'



'when you ralise there is something you don't understand, then you're generallyon the right path to understanding all kinds of things.'



'But they are still fantasy- and fantasy has the wonderful ability to keep what was once created, young and full of life for ever.'



'a young child sits building sandcastles in a sandbox. it constantly build something new, something which it treasures for only amoment before it knocks it all down again.in the same way, Time has been given a planet to play with.this is where the history of the world is written,this is where the events are engraved- and smoothed over again.this is where life bubbles like in a witch's cauldron.one day we'll be modelled here, too- from the same brittle material as our ancestors.the wind of Time blows through us, carries us and is us- then drops us again.we are conjured up and tricked away.ther is always something lying and brewing in anticipation of taking our place.because we are not standing on sand- we are sand.you cannot hide from Time. you can hide from kings and emperors, and possibly from God,but you can't hide from Time.Time follows our every move, because everything around us is immersed in this transient element.Time doesn't pass. and Time doesn't tick. we are the one who pass, and our watches tick.Time eats its way through history as silently and relentlessly as the sun risesin the east and sets in the west. it topples great civilisations, gnaws at ancient monuments, and wolfs down generation after generation.That's why we speak of the "ravages of time." Time chews and chomps-and we are the ones between its jaws.'



'For fleeting moment, we are part of a furious swarm. we run around the earth as though it was most obvious thing of all. you saw how the ants crawled and crept up at the Acropolis! But everything will disappear.it will disappear and be replaced with new multitudes, because people are alwaysstanding in line. Shapes and masks come and go, and new ideas are always popping up. themes are never repeated, and a composition never shows up twice...There is nothing as complicated and precious as a person, my boy- but we aretreated like trash'



'we skip around on earth like characters in a fairy tale. we nod and smile at each other as if to say, "Hi there, we're living at the same time! we're in the same reality- or the same fairy tale..." Isn't it incredible?We live on a planet in the universe, but soon we'll be swept out of orbit again.Abracadabra- and were gone.'



'If we had lived another century, we would have shared our lives with different people. today, we can easily nod and smile and say hello to thousands of our contemporaries:"Hi there! How strange we should be living at exactle the same time." Or perhaps Ibump into someone and open the door and shout:"Hi soul!"'



'we're alive, you know, but we live this only once. we open our arms and declare that we exist, but when we are swept aside and thrust into the debths of history. Because we are disposable. we are part of aneternal masquerade where the masks come and go. but we deserve more.you and i deserve to have our names engraved into something eternal, something that won't be washed away in the great sandbox.'



'thoughts don't flow. you see, I have sung only the first verse. the philosophers in Athens believed that there was also something which didn't run.Plato called this the "world of ideas". the sandcastle isn't always the important thing.what is most important is the image of a sandcastle which the child had pictured before it started to build. Why do you think the child knocks the sandcastle down as soon as it is finished?' 'Have you ever wanted to draw or make something but you just haven'tbeen able to get it right? you try over and over again, without giving up.it is because the image you have in your head is always more complete than the representations you try to form with your hands. It is the same as everything we see around us. we think everything could be better, and do you know whywe do that? it's because all the images inside our heads have come from the world of ideas.That's where we really belong, you know- not down here in the sandbox, where timesnaps at everything we love.'



'so there is another world, then?'"it was our soul before it lodged itself in a body, and it will return there when the bodyand it will return there when the body succumbs to the reveges of time."'is that true?''well, that's what Plato thought. our bodies have the same faith as the sandcastles in thesandbox, nothing can be done about it. that's because it doesn't belong here.we need to look up from everything flowing around us and see what it is all a representation of.'



'i had never taken the time to experience these wild animals because I had seen them sooften. It was the asme with everything- with the whole world, i thought to myself.as long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us-but then we grow used to the world. to grow up is to get drunk on sensual experience.'



'Time is turning me into an adult. Time is also making the ancient temples crumble and evenolder islands sink into the sea. was there really a sticky-bun bookin the biggest of the four buns in the bag?no question crosses my mind more often. As Socrates said, the only thing that I know is thatI know nothing. But I am positive there is still a joker roaming around the world. He will make sure that the world never rests. Whenever possible- and wherever possible- alittle fool will jump out wearing a donkey ears and jingling bells. he will look deepinto our eyes and ask, Who are you? Where do we come from?"



THANKS TO MY COUSIN TWINKLE, I WAS ABLE TO EXPERIENCE THIS WONDERFUL MOMENT...