There is an insurmountable distance between the misanthrope and his time that reveals itself with each attempt to approach it. The misanthrope who opens a contemporary novel will hardly be able to finish it, since he will gradually be overcome by a feeling of repulsion that will force him to throw it away, if he does not want to submit himself to a torture from which he has nothing to gain. Whose fault is this? Certainly not the novelist’s, who more often than not is only fulfilling part of his obligation to the future by describing minutiae and particularities. But there is no solution! His work, at every step, at every scene, will arouse bad feelings that will eventually suffocate the unadapted animal, and he will have to abandon it, if possible forget it. The misanthrope is someone out of place in space and time.
Tag: behavior
Early Adulthood
Early adulthood is a critical phase because the young man is pressured to make decisions with long-lasting consequences without having made up his mind firmly enough, or, in some cases, without having the personality to take charge of the decisions made. Added to this is the frequent case of financial dependence, which ends up leading to submission to advice and opinions. Thus, he almost always gives in to the supposed “wisdom of the elders”, when in truth this is only useful to him as long as it is in conformity with what he truly wants for himself. Otherwise, such advice will only be the push into the abyss that will cause him the most severe regret he has ever experienced—regret, however, necessary for him to mature, and realize that only a life in which the consequences suffered are the fruit of personal choices is worth living. The amusing thing, in short, is that in most cases a few more years would be enough for decisions to be made in a more sensible way; but no, for some reason they have to be made hastily, perhaps because the mistake itself is fundamental.
It Is Notorious That the So-Called…
It is notorious that the so-called temperamental predispositions are almost always anchored in experience, thus removing much of the meaning they seem to suggest. Much of what psychology says about environmental conditioning and its long-term impacts is definitely true, and it is indisputable that the environment interferes and shapes, its effect being proportional to the exposure time and intensity of the contact. Thus, whether we like it or not, we carry something with us from it, and precisely for this reason, distancing ourselves from it is fundamental in case this something inclines to the undesirable. Blocking oneself and creating psychological barriers to avoid its influence is possible and, in extreme cases, indispensable; but an experience, even if it bears fruit, cannot, no matter how much one may wish, simply be erased.
A Person With Some Education…
A person with some education does not interrupt another on the telephone; but he interrupts, without fearing for an instant, one who is thinking, as soon as he has the slightest and most insignificant communicative impulse. From this one can only conclude that thinking is a disease, and that normal people are not used to it; otherwise they would certainly know that a “excuse me” or an “I beg your pardon” in no way lessens the violent and abrupt cut they operate in the flow of ideas, which may never return. Neither morals nor conventions have taken care of this incomparable inconvenience: there are no restraints of any kind on the person who feels the desire to approach a stranger; quite the contrary, it is the stranger who will seem rude if he does not pay attention to the one who demands it. And, finally, how much satisfaction it gave to see for the first time that Karl Kraus noticed it! It is a subject for a whole book, and yet everyone seems accustomed to hearing news when they go to the barbershop; to being approached insistently by anyone who comes forward with the intention of selling. Well done, well done!