The Mind is Its Own Place

I learned about Paradise Lost in my twenties when I came across this quote in a Whitewolf manual (I think… or maybe it was an issue of FRP & Magic?).

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven. (IV, 75-79)

In my twenties I felt like this quote captured something about me. About being trapped by one’s own anxieties and negative thoughts, the sense that no matter where I turned, the source of my suffering travelled with me.

Now two decades later, I still understand the sentiment, but it is no longer me. My perspective has changed through years of learning, and a particularly difficult past year (some of which I posted about). This brings another quote from paradise lost to mind.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. (I, 254-255)

There are two reasons, this particular quote resonates with me so much:

First – The wisdom of my forties (/s) is this: our circumstances are what they are, but our interpretation, our reaction is a choice. I feel like I am no longer endlessly suffering. I am choosing to see victory in defeat. I will make a heaven out of this series of setbacks.

Second – Another reason this quote resonates is that my recent setbacks highlighted; how two individuals can perceive the exact same circumstances in drastically different ways. I was able to see heaven, in another’s hell. Looking back on it, I was fooling myself. Making a heaven out of an ongoing setback.

Of course, the subtext of Paradise lost is that Lucifer is deluding himself. He is defiant, and determined, admirably so. Yet he is still where he is cast down into. I think that is where this “mind is its own place” is a real kicker. That show of strength, that powerful defiance is hanging by the thin thread of ones mind. It is a delicate thing this thread… Can snap at any second.