I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

Dillard’s image turns a life into an instrument: a bell exists to resonate, but it cannot hear itself until an outside force lifts and strikes it. The line captures the shock of sudden vocation or awakening—an instant when latent capacities become audible and undeniable. It suggests that identity is not only self-made but also revealed through encounter, pressure, or grace: we discover what we are “for” when something in the world calls on us and sets us ringing. The metaphor also implies vulnerability; to be struck is to be acted upon, yet the blow produces meaning, sound, and presence.