Cioran rightly recommended that anyone experiencing a fit of rage toward someone simply take a piece of paper and a pen and write down a few dozen insults: “He’s a pig, a scoundrel, a criminal, an animal….” The rage passes. If it does not pass, it diminishes dramatically, and putting it down in writing brings about a kind of release. Now, what happens with anger also happens with anguish. But the processes are different. Anger dissipates with the frantic, dizzying outpouring; it dissipates through the way one writes. Anguish, on the other hand, dissipates, at least in part, through rationalization. It is always the same: evoking it seems to intensify it, plunging the mind into a painful process; yet, little by little, as one describes how it operates, it loses its strength, as if understanding were neutralizing it. In the end, one is left with a text: there it is, laid bare, perhaps very unpleasantly; but it has indeed diminished.
It Has Become a Common Belief That…
It has become a common belief that, to prove his competence on a talk show, a journalist must put the interviewee on the spot, confront him, expose him, and highlight his flaws and contradictions. A competent journalist, therefore, must masterfully play the role of accuser. If, for example, a journalist thinks a little differently and believes that his role is simply to try to draw out the best and most interesting aspects of the interviewee, allowing himself to take a back seat to the topic that should take center stage, he must be reborn in another era, for there is no room for such an approach in today’s journalism. A talk show exists to provoke clashes, interruptions, and leading questions. And the interviewee is there so that the audience can either acquit or condemn him.
At First, It Is Discovering Oneself…
At first, it is discovering oneself as an agent, pushing one’s own abilities to the limit, until one feels them exhausted, insufficient. Then, it is recognizing the impossibility of relying solely on them, and the need for greater support. Such support is possible! But in order to realize this, man usually has to fail first. It is when the world comes crashing down, when effort seems futile and longing impossible, that a man is able to realize just how wrong he can be in his judgments.
Better Are Always the Words of One Who…
Better are always the words of one who does not allow himself to be dominated by a sense of self-importance, even if that sense has not been transformed into humility. Contempt, scorn, whatever it may be: anything is valid to nullify it, and any expression that contradicts it is more pleasing than the pride that may stem from it. The reader, even if not a philosopher, will always have an innate sense of the relative importance of a single human being in the face of creation. Therefore, vice, even if not consciously perceived, will produce the impression arising from its vicious nature. It’s that simple.