Friday, January 16, 2015

Joseph Brodsky on how to deal with critics in your life


What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react.

Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yellow and not red lights.

Don’t linger on them mentally or verbally; don’t pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them — worse come to worse, do the forgetting first.

This way you’ll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation; this way, perhaps, you may even save those pigheads from themselves, since the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than that of being forgiven. So flip the channel: you can’t put this network out of circulation, but at least you can reduce its ratings.

Now, this solution is not likely to please angels, but, then again, it’s bound to hurt demons, and for the moment that’s all that really matters.”

–Joseph Brodsky, On Grief and Reason: Essays

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