Arquivo de behavior | Page 44 of 47

Desire: the Cancer of the Human Psyche

It is possible to find rational justifications for denying the solutions proposed by the Stoics, the Buddhists, Schopenhauer and many others. But there is a universal truth, present also in Christian philosophy, concerning desire: it is the plague, the cancer of the human psyche, the endless source of frustrations. And if, after careful psychological analysis, we decide to pluck it out at its root, plucking each of our hopes with a hoe, we get rid of an immense, malignant and harmful burden. The problem is that the human being lives on dreams, supports reality in the hope of a better future. To exterminate it, therefore, is to make life lose its brightness, is to give line to indifference, is to deny nature itself, is self-mutilation. Well, that seems to be the way to peace.

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Hatred Consecrates More Often than Love

It is curious to note that hatred consecrates more often than love. And it is curious to note how human stinginess initiates and closes the arc of the artistic work: it motivates aggression and whips the aggressor. I wonder if there is art among angels. Perhaps. But being man as he is, earthly art can never be different from what it always was. And envy and hatred will be forever, on earth, the medals awarded to the progenitor of great art.

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The Desire for Agreement

Few instincts are as pernicious to social relations and especially to the personality of the artist as the desire for agreement. Firstly, because this is a manifestation of vanity. Secondly, because of the natural implications: useless discussions, free antipathies and strengthening of attachment to one’s own ideas. All this is poison for someone who wants to cultivate friendly relationships and, worse, to give rise to artistic work. Living with the dissident is not only mandatory, but the world is better because two people do not think alike. And about the artist: what does he have to do with the opinion of others or with his own opinion? Wishing to agree will make him an egocentric, blinkered, inclined to use art to adorn his own convictions. As an artist, he will inevitably fail, since the desire for concordance is a stain that, in contact with art, impregnates and does not come out.

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The Bureaucrats’ Resistance

I admire the resistance of the bureaucrats. In the world, there are many bureaucrats. Ten, fifteen, thirty years performing exactly the same functions, fulfilling the same processes, satisfied and proud of their own experience. The serious countenance at work, the words filled with security, skill, precision. Experts in reports, forms, formal requisitions. Masters in procedures, specifications, certificates, regulations, minutes… I admire the resistance of bureaucrats, for I cannot imagine myself in such a universe but in despair, extreme frustration, eager for death. Filling out forms for thirty years? Please, please, give me the same hemlock as Socrates…

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