Barry Lopez, leaning

“No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: How to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror, inherent in all life. When one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture, but within one’s self. If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding, and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated, at once, life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great persistent questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light.”