Curious to note the posture of those whom I might call my prose models. Nietzsche, over the years, disowned his master with unparalleled violence. Cioran, though alternating outbursts and laments, did similarly with the one who he referred to as his “model.” It seems a natural course of life to slowly shed the old precepts, the old admirations, and what once shaped and nourished an expanding spirit. Cioran said in life only breakups matter. Perhaps because breakups are usually acts of courage. Renounces, apostasies, gradual and definitive detachment: all this seems, if looked at from a distance, to contribute to a kind of liberation.
Renounces and Apostasies
