On Living

On Living I Living is no laughing matter:        you must live with great seriousness               like a squirrel, for example—     I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,               I mean living must be your whole occupation. Living is no laughing matter:        you must take it seriously,        so much so and to such a degree    that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,                                        your back to the wall,    or else in a laboratory        in your white coat and safety glasses,        you can die for people—    even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,    even though you know living        is the most real, the most beautiful thing. I mean, you must take living so seriously    that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—    and not for your children, either,    but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,    because living, I mean, weighs heavier. II Let’s say we’re seriously ill, need surgery— which is to say we might not get up                       from the white table. Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad                       about going a little too soon, we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told, we’ll look out the window to see if it’s raining, or still wait anxiously               for the latest newcast... Let’s say we’re at the front—        for something worth fighting for, say. There, in the first offensive, on that very day,        we might fall on our face, dead. We’ll know this with a curious anger,        but we’ll still worry ourselves to death        about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let’s say we’re in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say,                       before the iron doors will open. We’ll still live with the outside, with its people and animals, struggle and wind—                             I mean with the outside beyond the walls. I mean, however and wherever we are,        we must live as if we will never die. III This earth will grow cold, a star among stars              and one of the smallest, a gilded mote on blue velvet—          I mean this, our great earth. This earth will grow cold one day, not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even but like an empty walnut it will roll along          in pitch-black space... You must grieve for this right now —you have to feel this sorrow now— for the world must be loved this much                            if you’re going to say “I lived”... Nâzım Hikmet, 1948 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

Store manager Federica Bianchi views a giant handcrafted chocolate replica of the Elizabeth Tower, which houses the Big Ben bell, to mark the opening of the Neuhaus UK flagship boutique in St Pancras International, London, England. The sculpture took over 100 hours to create using 45 kg of Neuhaus Belgian dark chocolate. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA via Getty Images.