birth hurts

from the three escapes of hannah arendt by ken krimstein

"if we turn eichmann into a demonic monster, we somehow absolve him of his crime, and all of us of our potential crime, the crime of not thinking things through. the sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

"birth hurts. and instead of tromping along behind heidegger with the solipsistic certainty that life is merely a slog toward death... you showed him, and everyone else, that life is an endless stream of birth. ideas, actions, people, men, women, unpredictable, unique, spontaneous, so much so that the meaning of their actions isn't even comprehensible to the person doing the acting. that everything, everything is about stories, the stories we tell one another about what he did, or she did. because, as you always say, storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. but not only stories, you showed that it is essential to forgive, but not forgive and forget, forgive and remember. because forgiveness throws history a curveball. it is, as you say all the time, the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history."