"Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It's the only space"
About this Quote
Okri’s “magic” isn’t a soft-focus pep talk; it’s a hard deadline dressed as wonder. The line opens with intoxication - “Our time here is magic!” - then immediately narrows the frame: this life is “the only space” you get. The exclamation is doing double duty, selling enchantment while smuggling in scarcity. Magic, in Okri’s hands, isn’t escapism. It’s attention under pressure.
The sentence structure enacts the experience he’s arguing for. That long, breathless list - “whatever is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great…” - feels like someone trying to name the unnameable before it slips away. The repetition of “whatever” is key: it democratizes the category of meaning. Okri refuses to tell you what counts as beautiful or true; he insists only that it exists, potentially, and that it’s your task to make it real. “Potential” sits among the loftier nouns like a quiet thesis statement: greatness isn’t an essence, it’s an unfinished verb.
Context matters. Okri, a poet-novelist shaped by postcolonial Nigeria and by the porous borders between realism and the spiritual in his work, often treats reality as something you co-create with imagination. “Only space” lands as both existential and political: when systems shrink people’s options, the inner life becomes not a luxury but a site of resistance. The fragmentary ending - “It’s the only space” - doesn’t complete the thought because life doesn’t. It leaves you suspended in the urgency of unfinished time, which is exactly the point.
The sentence structure enacts the experience he’s arguing for. That long, breathless list - “whatever is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great…” - feels like someone trying to name the unnameable before it slips away. The repetition of “whatever” is key: it democratizes the category of meaning. Okri refuses to tell you what counts as beautiful or true; he insists only that it exists, potentially, and that it’s your task to make it real. “Potential” sits among the loftier nouns like a quiet thesis statement: greatness isn’t an essence, it’s an unfinished verb.
Context matters. Okri, a poet-novelist shaped by postcolonial Nigeria and by the porous borders between realism and the spiritual in his work, often treats reality as something you co-create with imagination. “Only space” lands as both existential and political: when systems shrink people’s options, the inner life becomes not a luxury but a site of resistance. The fragmentary ending - “It’s the only space” - doesn’t complete the thought because life doesn’t. It leaves you suspended in the urgency of unfinished time, which is exactly the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Live in the Moment |
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