"He who wishes to live long must serve, but he who wishes to rule does not live long." #readingToday

I asked the servant Leo why it was that artists sometimes appeared to be only half-alive, while their creations seemed so irrefutably alive. Leo looked at me, surprised at my question. Then he released the poodle he was holding in his arms and said: "It is just the same with mothers. When they have borne their children and given them their milk and beauty and strength, they themselves become invisible, and no one asks about them any more." "But that is sad," I said, without really thinking very much about it. "I do not think it is sadder than all other things," said Leo. "Perhaps it is sad and yet also beautiful. The law ordains that it shall be so." "The law?" I asked curiously. "What law is that, Leo?" "The law of service. He who wishes to live long must serve, but he who wishes to rule does not live long." "Then why do so many strive to rule?" "Because they do not understand. There are few who are born to be masters; they remain happy and healthy. But all the others who have only become masters through endeavor, end in nothing." "In what nothing, Leo?" "For example, in the sanitoria." I understood little about it and yet the words remained in my memory and left me with a feeling that this Leo knew all kinds of things, that he perhaps knew more than us, who were ostensibly his masters.

Journey to the East, Hermann Hesse