take a break and sort out the lines of before sunset
1. Jesse: His great dream was to be a lover, an adventurer, you know, riding motorcycle through South America, and instead he's sitting at a marble table, eating lobster, and he's got a good job and a beautiful wife, right? But you know, everything that he needs. But that doesn't matter, 'cause what he wants is to fight for meaning.
…happiness is in the doing, not in the…getting what you want.
2. Jesse: You know, I mean I think the world might be getting better because people like you are educated into speaking out. Even the very notion of the conservation, environmental issues, those weren't even in vocabulary until fairly fairly recently, you know, and now they're becoming a norm, and eventually might be expected all over the world.
3. Jesse: …maybe what I am saying is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right, I mean…me, for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don’t know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, racked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older, my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them
. Calmness, learning to be rational makes it possible to enjoy life.)
4. Celine: I, uh, remember as a teenager I went to Warsaw, when it was still a strict communist regime. Which I don't approve of it at all.
…But anyway, something about being there was very interesting, I found. After a couple of weeks, something changed in me. The city was quite gloomy and gray and …but, after a while, my brain seemed clearer. I was writing a lot in my journal, ideas I had never thought of before.
Jesse: Communist ideas?
Celine: Listen, I'm not…
Jesse: I'm sorry, I can't…Go on!
Celine: I'll send you to Gulag! No…but it took me a while to figure out why it felt, you know, so different. And then, one day, as I was walking through the Jewish cemetery, I don't know why, but it occur to me there, I realize that I had spent the last two weeks away from most of my habits. TV was in a language I didn't really understand. There was nothing to buy, no advertisements anywhere. So , all I've been doing was…walk around, think, and write. My brain felt that it was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy. And I have to say, it was almost like natural high. I felt so peaceful inside , no…strange urge to be somewhere else, to shop… Maybe it could have seemed like boredom at first, but it quickly became very, very soulful. It's interesting, you know
? If you want to find inner peace, go to a desolate place and live for a while.)
5. Celine: …Did you ever keep a journal when you are a kid?
Jesse: Um, yeah…On and off, I guess.
Celine: It's funny, I read a …one of mine from '83, the other day.
Jesse: Yeah?
Celine: And, what really surprised me, is that I was feeling with life, the same way I am now. I was much more hopeful and naïve, but the core, and the way I was feeling things, is exactly the same. It made me realize that I haven't changed much at all.
Jesse: Yeah, I don't think anybody does; people don't want to admit it, but it's like we just… we have these innate set points ...You know, its like … nothing much that happens to us changes our disposition
.
Are you depressed now?
Celine: No, no, I'm not depressed. But, sometimes I worry that I'll get to the end of my life feeling I haven't done all I wanted to do.
Jesse: Oh, what do you wanna do?
Celine: I, um, I want to paint more, I wanna… play my guitar everyday, I wanna learn Chinese, I wanna write more songs…there are so many things I wanna do, but end up doing not much.
Jesse: ( Laugh) Alright well, well let me ask you this: do you believe in, like…ghosts or spirits?
Celine: Um, no.
Jesse: No?
Celine: No.
Jesse: OK, uh, what about reincarnation?
Celine: Not at all.
Jesse: God?
Celine: No.(They both laugh) That sounds...that sounds terrible. No,no,no. But, at the same time, I don't wanna be one of those people that don't believe in any kind of magic, you know.
Jesse: So then, astrology.
Celine: Yes, of course!
Jesse: There we go, right!
Celine: I mean, that makes senses, right? You're a scorpio, I'm a sag, so we get along. (They both laugh) No! No,no…There is a …Einstein quote I really, really like .He said, um: If you don't believe in any kind of magic, or mystery,, you are as good as dead.
(Those mysterious things have an inherent beauty, pointing directly to the highest truth, and exploring them is the greatest pleasure.)
8. Celine:…when you're young…you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life you realize it only happens a few times.
(Exactly)
9. Celine: …I mean I am really happy when I'm on my own. Even being alone…it's better than sitting next to a lover and feeling lonely. It's not easy for me to be all romantic. You start off that way and after you've been screwed over a few times…you…you forget about all your delusional ideas and you just take what comes into your life. That's not even true I haven't been screwed over, I've just had too may blah relationships. They weren't mean, they cared for me, but… there were no real…connection or excitement. At least not from my side.
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