Loving this Passage from Shantaram

“The cloak of the past is cut from patches or feeling and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on.

But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reasons and significance, it's beginning and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometims we see the past so clearly and read the legend of its parts with such acuity that every stage of time reveals its purpose and a kind of message is enfolded in it.

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow and in the tiny precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure have their reasons and the right to be”

It's written as a single paragraph the end of chapter 40, beautifully written. I love the last bit, sure, everyone knows that life experience no matter good or bad fixes us something, but the story leading to this point in the novel made this a resonate much louder, a strong summation of the protagonists journey.

Shantaram is a long novel about his (fictionised dramatised) exile in India, written by Gregory David Roberts.