"Contemplation"
"It is a kind of higher degree of introspection, when I no longer allow myself to be carried along so freely by memories or dreams of returning from prison, but rather I think to a purpose - about everything possible: myself and my life, my writing, the things that relate to my situation at the moment and of course - above all, perhaps - about many general themes. I once wrote to you about how, in the first weeks and months of my imprisonment I imagined, very vividly and almost physically, all the things, now denied to me, that constituted my life outside, how I missed things so intensely and looked forward to them in a very sensual way. Now - with the passage of time - these experiences are not nearly as immediate and urgent and instead my home (my 'particular horizon') operates inside me, with increasing clarity of meaning, moral content, demands and hopes, in other words in terms of what lies beneath its sensory surface. For this reason too, 'contemplation' - as the manifestation of a deeper, more spiritual relationship to the values of the world and my life - is coming to prevail over those two more 'down-to-earth' levels - remembering the past and imagining the future....It may be a slow process; something worthwhile is going on inside of me - perhaps. Many things are becoming imperceptibly clearer, silently firmer, or are being discarded and classified. Much that is superficial and impulsive is falling by the wayside, while the value of other things is being recognized more deeply."
Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga
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