Tag: literature

Thanks to Pessoa, I open a volume on astrology. The author, already in the introduction, warns me: “If you don’t believe in the principles of what will be exposed in this work, then it will be of no use to you.” I gratefully close the volume and move on to the next. There is no doubt that astrology works: one just has to open a dating app. But, in short, a belief? Studying to confirm, to support a belief? Why not the opposite? Despite my efforts, the agreement with the poet does not seem to come. It is in dismay that I notice: the mosquito of belief has not bitten me.

It is with amazement that I read Jung’s conclusions and Pessoa’s lines about astrology. Two modern minds, two minds that I hold in tremendous esteem. Modern, and immediately I see attacked the prejudices of an individual that grew up at the end of the 20th century, trained according to the ideology of his time. The reaction is to excite the newfound curiosity, by the desire not to be like the mediocre and to try to follow the path of the great. Then I come across an area that seems immersed in the most terrible confusions, when not dominated by the cheapest philosophy. Well done! Dozens of centuries give credence to the attention. But what can be gained from all this? Come on… the poet was an astrologer.

“L’œuvre de l’esprit n’existe qu’en acte”—thus Valéry begins one of the most lucid passages I have ever had the opportunity to read about art. Art is the act of artistic creation, which survives as the record of a momentary illumination, a response of the spirit to specific circumstances. Taken out of context, it is innocuous. It can only be assimilated if analyzed as a whole and is destroyed when its elements are dissected. A beautiful lesson for the “experts”…