We look before and after and pine for what is not.
We look before and after and pine for what is not.
Variety is the spice of life.
The proverb tells that variety of things and ideas in the life of man brings him fun and joy as the spices of life like joy and fun make him enthusiastic and enjoyable like different flavors of spices add to the taste of food and make the food palatable. Each spice is different in flavors and they add to the taste of food. To increase the taste of food and for better intake of food, we add spices of different flavors while preparing the food we want. The tasteless or less tasted food is neglected to be taken in. Different flavors are needed for the different dishes. Otherwise the same flavor looses its taste after sometime because the variety of spices makes the food eatable.
Similarly variety is needed in every sphere of life. The same routine life of the family like going to job coming back home and doing household work makes life monotonous and we lose our creativity in life. There should be some changes in the lifestyle of people. When we engage in the monotonous work continuously for several hours and days, we feel very tired. We should have some break to carry on the life afresh. Engaging ourselves in other than our routine work entertains the mind and provides opportunities to refresh us. Change always brings happiness and happiness always makes the people lively. We may go to the hill stations and other worth seeing places of our interest which we can afford. Such changes in life make the life charming and happy and the variety fills our hearts with joy and pleasure.
We are the hollow man.
This expression means that man-wearing disguises has no spiritual substance and so modern people are devoid of faith. This is from a famous poem of T.S. Eliot. In the poem, he says that the modern people are spiritually hollow. The poet expresses a feeling of bitter despair because he feels that modern people are devoid of faith. We seem to be living in death's dream kingdom. We are the hollow men wearing disguises. We have no spiritual substance and so there is a spiritual degeneration in our age. We are in a state of spiritual frustration and our rituals are meaningless.
We look before and after and pine for what is not.
This line means that we - the human beings - think over the incidents or events that happened in the past and the events that may happen in future and keep worrying imagining as if there are some dangers and evils. By keeping the thought of these misfortunes, human beings cannot seek happy periods that may appear in their lives.
Shelley from the poem ODE TO A SKYLARK writes this line. He says that human life can never perfectly happy as our happiest songs contain some elements of unhappiness. In this poem, Shelley says that skylark lives in some ideal world where happiness is incomplete and its song is fully suggestive of its happiness. But human beings cannot be happy as the bird. They think of the past events that had happened and the events that may happen in future and make themselves worry imagining that this may come or that may come which do not exist. They spend their time in brooding over them and do not divert their mind to think of the events which will possibly happen. Many poets at one point or the other expressed the same and also expressed a longing to escape to some ideal world where happiness is complete. Human beings generally prolong their misfortunes by brooding over them and they do not find time to pursue a happy period that may appear in their life.
We look before and after and pine for what is not.
GRAMMAR INDEX
We look before and after and pine for what is not. To HOME PAGE
