Nazim hikmet on living well

We'll know this with a strange resentment, but we'll still wonder madly about how this war, which could last years, will end. Let's say we're in prison and nearly 50, and let's imagine we have 18 more years before the opening of the iron doors. We'll still live with the outside, with its people, its animals, its toil and wind, I mean with the outside beyond the walls.

I mean, however and wherever we are we must live as if we will never die. Let's say we're at the front— for something worth fighting for, say.

Nazim hikmet on living well: Living is no laughing

There, in the first offensive, on that very day, we might fall on our face, dead. We'll know this with a curious anger, but we'll still worry ourselves to death about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let's say we're in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say, before the iron doors will open. Let's say we're at the front-- for something worth fighting for, say.

Nazim hikmet on living well: A translation of the poem “Yaşamay

There, in the first offensive, on that very day, we might fall on our face, dead. We'll know this with a curious anger, but we'll still worry ourselves to death about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let's say we're in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say, before the iron doors will open. Living is no laughing matter: you must take it seriously, so much so and to such a degree that, for example, your hands tied behind your back, your back to the wall, or else in a laboratory in your white coat and safety glasses, you can die for people-- even for people whose faces you've never seen, even though you know living is the most real, the most beautiful thing.

Nazim hikmet on living well: Living is no laughing matter:

I mean, you must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees-- and not for your children, either, but because although you fear death you don't believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier. II Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery-- which is to say we might not get from the white table.

Even though it's impossible not to feel sad about going a little too soon, we'll still laugh at the jokes being told, we'll look out the window to see it's raining, or still wait anxiously for the latest newscast. Let's say we're at the front-- for something worth fighting for, say.