The Atom’s Mirror
A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.
~ Niels Bohr
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I was given a fellowship to go to Europe, and I went to the University of Paris. I was working on medieval French and Provençal and on the troubadour poetry. When I got to Europe, I discovered Modern Art: James Joyce, Picasso, Mondrian — the whole bunch of them. Paris in 1927–28 was something else.
Then I went to Germany and started studying Sanskrit and got all involved in Hinduism. I discovered Jung while in Germany…Well, my question then was, “Am I going to go back into that bottle?” My interest in Celtic Romance was gone.
…I had put in all the hours necessary for the degree; all I had to do was write that goddamn thesis. They wouldn’t let me move into another place and continue my education, so I said to hell with it. I went up into the woods and spent five years reading. I never got the Ph.D. I learned to live on absolutely nothing…
~ Joseph Campbell
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To embody your full beingness on this earth will take everything that you’ve got, every ounce of strength, every last resource. However, it’s not that you need to push or force yourself towards some extrinsic goal, but rather that you may need to let a larger force of nature come through you, to open you, to move…
