These days, I am neither distrustful nor suspicious of the world, even though my heart breaks for it, and I am not despairing, depressed or embittered. Indeed, I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world - to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you, and this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a clarity to both the world before us and the world beyond the veil. Sorrow becomes a way of life, part laughter, part tears, with very little space between.
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Nick Cave on the Artistic Impulse and Other Responsibilities
The creative urge is a gift not afforded to everyone, and those of us who possess it bear a responsibility to pursue that impulse wholeheartedly. However, there are other duties beyond those at the tip of your brush or nib of my pen — beautiful and sacrificial fidelities. You have committed to your wife and son to offer them more than just the crumbs of yourself, the dregs of what remains of you after a day with the devil in the shed. You are in service to your creative impulses — and by the same token to God — but you are also in service to the world as it presents…
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Nick Cave on Mercy
Mercy is a value that should be at the heart of any functioning and tolerant society. Mercy ultimately acknowledges that we are all imperfect and in doing so allows us the oxygen to breathe — to feel protected within a society, through our mutual fallibility. Without mercy a society loses its soul, and devours itself.