Buddhists have understood the mechanics of this world, where everything that is alive dies, albeit slowly, albeit in disguise through an inevitable cycle. Impresses that it is so difficult to face death as a natural and necessary episode. Putting stones on the past: this is the rare virtue, also called maturity, which is nothing but the ability to accept the present. Everything is always in movement, every state is necessarily transitory, what lives today will die, and what was is not…
Category: Notes
Loftiness Manifests Itself, Above All, in Adversity
Loftiness manifests itself, above all, in adversity. When the wind blows in favor, it is easy to use it as a mask. When facing setbacks, however, the masks fall, and the lofty one is distinguished by the superb virtue of silence. Firm posture, nerves of steel, and resignation. Let the storm come, any storm! Loftiness is all about never complaining.
The Best Narrative Requires Methodical Structuring
Various experiments have led me to think that the best narrative requires methodical structuring. It is true: one makes prose free-minded, letting it flow, with interesting results. Yet the effect of a narrative is almost always weaker if we notice major structural lapses in it. Why is it tepid? Why is it unconvincing? We often find the answer in its sequence, in the way it is organized and progresses. By the side of the artist, it seems interesting to sit down and build with total freedom, unattached to structural ties. However, there seems to be a lure there. Great art seems to require an omniscient artist who, at every step, strives to simulate the naturalness of what he is creating.
The Image We Make of Authors and Works Comes to Life and Moves
The image we make of authors and works, over time, comes to life and moves. So we can experience impressions that are impossible in the instant contiguous to contact with them, impressions that require distancing and maturation. If, on the one hand, these impressions can expand our understanding, on the other they can take us away from what is most important. Therefore, of those that are dear to us, rereading is a mandatory task.