Three Beautiful Things

3. Philip K. Dick says, “Any seeming reality that is obliging…is something to suspect. The hallmark of the fraudulent is that it becomes what you would like it to be.” Disappointment, he says, is “the stamp of authenticity.” As I type the quotations, my shoulders convulse with a chill: though I am alone tonight, I imagined there was a child in the room and I was reading him those words.

I have also been writing down Three Beautiful Things in my daily journal, as has Richard Lawrence Cohen, whose Beautiful Thing #3 from July 29 is quoted above.

Disappointment is the stamp of authenticity. Good God, that makes me shiver, too. And then to add the idea of a child in the room. Arghhhhhhhh.

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotations, Philip Larkin writing about "fulfillment's desolate attic."

How disappointing it is to get what we thought we wanted. Better to be continually striving for the unattainable.

Finally, I highly recommend the practice of writing down three beautiful things every day. It makes every day more fun.