Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
[Rainer Maria Rilke]
Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke
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What usually has the strongest psychic effect on the child is the life which the parents (and ancestors too, for we are dealing here with the age-old psychological phenomenon of original sin) have not lived.
This statement would be rather too perfunctory and superficial if we did not add by way of qualification: that part of their lives which might have been lived had not certain somewhat threadbare excuses prevented the parents from doing so.
To put it bluntly, it is that part of life which they have always shirked, probably by means of a pious lie. That sows the most virulent germs.
[C. G. Jung]
The Development of Personality, CW 17, pars. 84, 87
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April: You don't want to go, do you?
Frank: Come on, April. Of course I do.
April: No, you don't. Because you've never tried at anything. And if you don't try at anything, you can't fail.
Frank: What the hell do you mean I don't try? I support you, don't I? I pay for this house. I work 10 hours a day at a job I can't stand.
April: You don't have to.
Frank: Bullshit! Look, I'm not happy about it. But I have the backbone not to run away from my responsibilities.
April: It takes backbone to lead the life you want, Frank.
Dialogue from Revolutionary Road (film)
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