Detach

(Jack Lemmon-major acting role as Morrie Schwartz)

This idea from Tuesdays with Morrie sounds interesting so I wanna record it down somewhere rather than let it float away after finishing the book.

"Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important - not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach." 

He opened his eyes. He exhaled. "You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent." 

But wait, I said. Aren't you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the bad ones?

"Yes."

Well how can you do that if you're detached?

"Ah. You're thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it."

I'm lost.

"Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.