"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality"
About this Quote
Resignation, reframed as rebellion. Kazantzakis is allergic to passivity, but he’s also too clear-eyed to sell the cheap fantasy that willpower can bulldoze the world. “Since we cannot change reality” lands like a hard clause in a contract: limits acknowledged, no bargaining. Then he pivots, not to surrender, but to the one territory still under contest - perception. The “eyes” aren’t just literal sight; they’re the mind’s habit of sorting experience into fate, failure, punishment, or possibility. Change the eyes and you change the meaning, the emotional weather, the next action.
The subtext is existentialist without being salon-philosophy. Kazantzakis wrote in the churn of occupation, war, and ideological collapse; he watched history grind people down while still insisting on an inner freedom that can’t be confiscated. That tension runs through his work: suffering is real, but so is the human capacity to metabolize it into purpose. The line refuses both naïveté (“reality” is immovable) and nihilism (your interpretation isn’t).
The sentence works because it’s built like a moral judo move. It concedes the opponent’s strength, then uses it. The first clause prevents magical thinking; the second offers a practical lever. It’s also quietly communal: “let us” turns perception into shared discipline, not a solitary self-help hack. In an age of doomscrolling and algorithmic outrage, Kazantzakis reads less like a mystic and more like a media critic: if you can’t instantly change the world, you can still change the lens that determines what you think is worth doing next.
The subtext is existentialist without being salon-philosophy. Kazantzakis wrote in the churn of occupation, war, and ideological collapse; he watched history grind people down while still insisting on an inner freedom that can’t be confiscated. That tension runs through his work: suffering is real, but so is the human capacity to metabolize it into purpose. The line refuses both naïveté (“reality” is immovable) and nihilism (your interpretation isn’t).
The sentence works because it’s built like a moral judo move. It concedes the opponent’s strength, then uses it. The first clause prevents magical thinking; the second offers a practical lever. It’s also quietly communal: “let us” turns perception into shared discipline, not a solitary self-help hack. In an age of doomscrolling and algorithmic outrage, Kazantzakis reads less like a mystic and more like a media critic: if you can’t instantly change the world, you can still change the lens that determines what you think is worth doing next.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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