ABOUT LIVING ABOUT LIVING Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example- I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation. 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. 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.