Enjoying Life in Spite of Everything

… What we must revive, in these mechanical days, is the soul’s power of detaching itself from everything, and enjoying life in spite of everything. Circumstances we can seldom change. Money-worries, love-worries, ambition-worries, health-worries, employment-worries we all have to endure. They are there; and we – we are there! To suffer physical suffering, to lose our days in meaningless drudgery, to have decisions to make, people to cajole, people to threaten, people to cheat and to be cheated by, fruitless hateful encounters with people who are more alien to us than archangels or water-flies – these things are simply life. Only an infinitesimal number of creatures ever, by the divine favour of the gods, escape these things. To suffer something other, to have to face something or other, this is simply to live. This is what life is…

In Defence of Sensuality

John Cowper Powys
Victor Gollancz Ltd 1930
Page 220