Re “Choosing what to do with the anger” (Op-ed, Oct. 23): The art of living is the ability to use life’s inevitable adversities in a constructive fashion, exemplified, as Roland Merullo notes in his poignant essay, by the lives of Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama, among others.
It is always possible. Shakespeare’s elder Duke, in “As You Like It,” who had been betrayed and exiled to the Forest of Arden by a jealous younger brother, expresses this when he says:
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I was talking to God the other day (not really) and asked him why, if he/she or whoever is so smart, why did he/she or whoever make life so difficult down here on planet, pitiful earth. I agree witrh Dr. Sperber, he/she or whoever said. You see, if you fight the gale, then you learn how to deal with adversity. Excuse me, I said. Why do we have adversity? Is it not true that in heaven there is no adversity? Yes, he/she or whoever said. Then why adversity here? What a minute, let me think about that, he/she or whoever said.
I was talking to God the other day (not really) and asked him why, if he/she or whoever is so smart, why did he/she or whoever make life so difficult down here on planet, pitiful earth. I agree witrh Dr. Sperber, he/she or whoever said. You see, if you fight the gale, then you learn how to deal with adversity. Excuse me, I said. Why do we have adversity? Is it not true that in heaven there is no adversity? Yes, he/she or whoever said. Then why adversity here? What a minute, let me think about that, he/she or whoever said.