Your Nordic blue eyes looked attentively at the paintings hanging on the walls. I felt stirrings of rebellion: a whole clash between your civilization and my barbarism. Civilization from which you suffer. Barbarism which for me is a rejuvenation.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker feels a tension between the observer's refined culture and their own raw nature, viewing the latter as a source of renewal rather than a deficit.
- In plain terms
- I feel a conflict between your civilized world and my wild nature, but I find strength in my wildness.
- What can you take from it?
- Embrace your raw nature as a source of renewal.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Where do you find renewal?
- How do you define your culture?
Another view
Framing oneself as barbaric can be a romanticized self-image rather than a reality.
More from Paul Gauguin
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
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