You will never find your vocation unless you give up illusion

The worst and most paradoxical thing about human nature
is not that man fears unhappiness and death,
but invariably dreads Happiness and Life.

Thomas Ross:
Your words resonate with one of my most treasured Tao passages.
“[The Master] holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day’s work.”

And perhaps even more, you send me again to the Auden passage – “We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

Me:
Isn´t it so? When we really LIVE and hold nothing back from life, doing the best of our ability to fulfill our Real Call, we have enough time and are no longer afraid to die. When we fear life, we are always short of time, and being short of time, means not pursuing our real vocation.

Change is more feared than death…

Accordingly, this passage by Auden is breathtakingly true…”We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die”…

Alas, give us today our daily distortions as Righteousness and Truth scares us…