Brain Food #508
The Weighing
Thoughts of the day
Jane Hirshfield’s The Weighing has some of the most powerful closing lines in a poem I have had the fortune of coming across recently, reflecting our inherent, ceaseless ability to stretch and to adapt, and life’s ability to reach a balance, eventually.
Negativity bias is a cognitive bias that implies we are hardwired to place more weight and importance on negative events that happen, compared to positive events. This means our mind responds more prominently to experiences of a negative nature, tricking us into remembering all the things that went wrong, while easily forgetting, or undermining, everything that was right.
Although the darkest moments might seem to outnumber the lightest, the latter should, and according to Hirshfield, will carry more weight.
Wishing you a good Friday, and a great weekend.
The Weighing
The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.
As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
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