It takes a few gray hairs in the head to be continually amazed by the ineffable confluence of factors that contribute to the defining moments of a life. When we analyze, for example, the cathartic experiences that are so striking in Dostoevsky’s work, we realize that, although they are described with the utmost skill, although they strongly convey an idea of the complexity that surrounds them, it is impossible for the writer to exhaust them, it is impossible for him to simply describe them completely. Because they appear as points where the whole individual converges, his mind and his biography, his acts and his omissions. And if there is trauma, if there is liberation, if there is rebirth, they all appear concentrated, inseparable, as one single thing.
The Repetition Is Amusing…
The repetition is amusing because it shows that by announcing it, a problem is not solved. And it returns again and again in new forms, demanding new recognition. It is difficult, how it is difficult to maintain integrity in contact with the world! If this effort is what Goethe called character, the world can only be seen as a test. And without prayer, meditation and the daily affirmation of one’s vows, it is very easy to degrade oneself in the face of a victorious world. Prayer and meditation are superlative and indispensable practices. Distancing oneself from them, distancing oneself from constructive reading, and the spirit is lost as quickly as it is strengthened when it approaches them. Only fools can deny this.
What Dignifies the Being Is the Active Work
By Lavelle:
Il n’y a qu’une attitude qui donne à la douleur son véritable sens, c’est celle qui consiste à l’accepter, à la faire nôtre, à lui demander les moyens d’enrichir et d’approfondir notre être intérieur, c’est-à-dire à la convertir en un principe de joie. L’origine de la moralité est la souffrance volontaire.
What dignifies the being is the active work he does on the circumstances at his disposal. Pain, therefore, like everything else, only acquires meaning when it is transmuted, when it is absorbed and used as fuel for some positive transformation. There is no merit or demerit in suffering it; man, however, only appears when he transfigures it, necessarily imprinting his individual mark.
Historiography Repeatedly Delivers Such a Shock…
Historiography repeatedly delivers such a shock that it is impossible for the student not to enter a state of revolt. This happens, for example, when we study the systematic advance of the state over freedoms, penetrating and perverting the social tissue more and more completely, so that today, transformed into a very powerful monster, it has practically annulled the possibility of reaction. Revolt is legitimate: people have risen up and heads have rolled for far less. Thinking about the “abusive” taxes of the past and comparing them with the peaceful, bovine acceptance of radically higher taxes today is a stab in the spirit. However, we have to overcome our revolt and continue studying, because first of all we need to understand exactly what happened.