Despite seeming non-existent today after decades of systematic and vehement relativization, common sense remains the most solid moral beacon for ordinary man. It is not the law that guides him, it is not the law that he thinks about when he acts or refrains from acting. If he does not kill, if he does not steal, it is because common sense prescribes it, whether or not there is a law. The effect of the law, moreover, thanks to the modern state, is to always make him more or less of an infringer. In other words: if the law does not correspond to common sense, it cannot be seen as fair, and its effect can never be educational, as it is theoretically intended to be. And the most curious thing about all this is that the day will come when someone will have to notice it, will have to notice the failure of modern law in the face of age-old common sense. And then, if it is to be legally transcribed, it will no longer be possible—unless religion is admitted once again.
The Law Only Fulfills the Social Function…
The law only fulfills the social function for which it is justified when it is the legal expression of common sense. As soon as it is necessary to go to a specialist to learn about it, or rather, as soon as it becomes specialized knowledge, distant and not universally apprehended because it is obvious, the law loses its social function and becomes a mere means of oppression on the part of those who have the power to apply it or benefit from its application.
The Impressive Thing About Habit…
The impressive thing about habit is that it accustoms the mind to difficult tasks, making them seem almost, almost easy; and even if it does not go that far, it trivializes doing them, something extraordinary in itself. Psychologically, getting used to doing something means doing it with less effort, like switching on an automatic execution mode. And it is only possible to see how beneficial, how powerful a habit is when one breaks it and then tries to do what one used to do naturally. Almost always, the effort needed to pick it up is less than the effort needed to give it up.
The Commitment Not to Give Up…
The commitment not to give up is the beginning and the harbinger of literary work. Without it, what is done does not become a work, but merely something fleeting and equally disposable. It is only this commitment that will sustain the effort when circumstances sabotage it, when the will to write itself fails. It is this that motivates habit, and it is only this that restores normality when habit, violated, transmutes a state of productive inertia into absolute torpor.