Quietly fine

Tagore’s “I have had my invitation to this world’s festival”

For when nothing is wrong, and that feels worth noticing.

“I have had my invitation to this world’s festival, and thus my life has been blessed. My eyes have seen and my ears have heard.”
Rabindranath TagoreGitanjali, no. 16 · Tagore’s own English rendering (1912)Read the original text ↗

In plain words

A whole life weighed in one breath, and the only things counted are that the speaker was invited, that they saw, and that they heard. There is no achievement in the tally and nothing to fix. It may be the quietest way of being fine there is.

Worth knowing

In the song, the speaker is talking to God, and the last lines ask whether it is time to go in and see his face. You don’t need to share that belief for the counting to work. Tagore made the English versions of his own Bengali songs; the 1912 volume helped win him the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Know someone who feels this way — .

Another feeling

If something of your own is sitting heavy — /talk is a quieter room.

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The quote is checked against the original text. The plain-words note is an AI-assisted draft. How AI is used