When I look back on my life nowadays,
which I sometimes do,
what strikes me most forcibly about it is
that what seemed at the time
most significant and seductive,
seems now futile and absurd.
For instance, success in all of its various guises;
being known and being praised,
ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money
or seducing women, or traveling,
going to and fro in the world
and up and down in it like Satan,
exploring and experiencing
whatever Vanity Fair has to offer.
In retrospect all these exercises
in self-gratification seem pure fantasy,
what Pascal called ” licking the earth.”
They are diversions designed to distract in this world
which is, quite simply,
to look for God,
and, in looking, to find Him
and, having found Him, to love Him,
thereby establishing a harmonious relationship
with His purposes for His creation.
-Malcolm Muggeridge
which I sometimes do,
what strikes me most forcibly about it is
that what seemed at the time
most significant and seductive,
seems now futile and absurd.
For instance, success in all of its various guises;
being known and being praised,
ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money
or seducing women, or traveling,
going to and fro in the world
and up and down in it like Satan,
exploring and experiencing
whatever Vanity Fair has to offer.
In retrospect all these exercises
in self-gratification seem pure fantasy,
what Pascal called ” licking the earth.”
They are diversions designed to distract in this world
which is, quite simply,
to look for God,
and, in looking, to find Him
and, having found Him, to love Him,
thereby establishing a harmonious relationship
with His purposes for His creation.
-Malcolm Muggeridge
