The man who needs to understand reality and understand himself in order to make an attempt at integration will be a stranger. And he will feel more like a stranger the more he understands about reality and himself, the more he becomes convinced that what he knows is too little, and that he cannot accept reality just because it is. At the same time, he will be attacked from all directions because of his incapacity for passive adaptation, and will end up stigmatized for being what he is. He will therefore face great and unique difficulties because he cannot get rid of his predisposition. Only with luck will the world seem less than hostile to him. And despite all this, and despite how much he faces and how much he suffers, his unhappiness will only be guaranteed and complete if he fails to do his duty.
It Is Somewhat Curious That There Is a Veiled…
It is somewhat curious that there is a veiled homogeneity in the idea of historical evolution in the modern West, when there is enormous accessibility to established historians whose works dismantle this very idea. In other words: the subject proclaims what he has discovered very well documented in a reliable source, sometimes in a publication that was published more than half a century ago, and is still regarded as crazy, as an enemy and as a criminal. For some reason, the veiled consensus wants to remain immune to certain works. But it should be noted that, at least since Hegel, being a historian has, to a large extent, also become being iconoclastic.
If, on the One Hand, It Is Very Useful
If, on the one hand, it is very useful for an artist not to get carried away and to save some of his inspirations so that he can work on them better, on the other hand, he has to develop a very keen sense for recognizing his exceptional moods and ideas, in short, he has to know when it is essential to seize the moment. There are ideas that unfortunately pass, and states of mind that can only be experienced once. Age shows this above all. The experienced writer, no matter how experienced, cannot return to the past in order to write. There is nothing wrong with that, except if, out of an abundance of caution, he perceives in it an opportunity that has been lost.
The Writer Should Always Remember…
The writer should always remember the example of Dostoevsky who, being the staunchest critic of nihilism, is considered by nihilists to be one of their own. This is only because Dostoevsky puts himself entirely from the point of view of his characters, so that when they manifest themselves, the ideas of their creator are indistinguishable. More than effort, achieving this level of artistic expression requires a predisposition: one that seeks, above all, to do justice to the object portrayed; one that, in a word, we call sincerity.