Great Regulars: The image the sentence should bring to mind

is that of a salmon struggling against the current of the stream on its way to spawn. The point is that, so long as we live, we are surrounded, like a fish in water, by a medium of being that is pressing always against us, and that to cease struggling against that pressure means to die.

This quote, in fact, is irreducible. Like a poem, it means only what it says precisely as it says it. It cannot be translated into a platitude.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Life against the current

~~~~~~~~~~~

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

I simply do not find this coherent. Are we meant to contrast the second and third examples, who live by "do no harm" or "take no more than you need" with those who live by "love thy neighbor" or are they all meant to be contrasted with "the love beyond" that follows? And what exactly is that love, if it isn't "love thy neighbor as thyself" (which, by the way, is only half of the admonition).

from Frank Wilson: Books, Inq.--The Epilogue: The inaugural poem (cont'd.) . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~