Before saying goodbye to José Ortega y Gasset's book What Is Philosophy?, I'd like to offer one more quote:
[L]ife always carries with it a fatal dimension and some hint of having fallen into a trap. Except that this trap does not strangle us, but leaves to life a margin of decision and always permits us, out of the imposed situation, to achieve an elegant solution and to forge for ourselves a beautiful life. Hence, because life is part fate, and part the freedom we need to make decisions for ourselves, there is at its very root the stuff of art.... [D]o not say that fate does not allow us to improve our lives, for the beauty of life does not lie in the fact that destiny is or is not favorable to us, but in the grace with which we accept the challenge and out of its fatal material fashion a noble figure.
Each of us is dropped into the pageant of the world, and we are fated to live as human beings in a certain time and place with all of the attendant difficulties and ambiguities. Yet, despite this destiny, each of us has enough freedom to forge a beautiful life. That's all that truly matters, isn't it? If I'm not creating something beautiful, why am I here?
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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