Arquivo de philosophy | Page 127 of 143

An Unsuitable Animal [2]

Forced to wait in a line, with nothing to read, I enjoy the moment in a fun activity: trying to list the things I hate most. Here we go: (1) dissimulation, (2) bureaucracy, (3) demagoguery, (4) groups of people, (5) marketing, (6) expansiveness, (7) noise of human voices, (8) futile conversation… I list and have an idea. The smile is immediate. Again, I perceive myself as an unsuitable animal. I consider, perhaps, that my existence is an evolutionist enigma. I have countless contrary manifestations to the environment, so I risk my nature to be the portrait of maladjustment. In me, the intro and the extra are related in hostility, they repel each other without any possible conciliation. I deliberately refuse to integrate the medium, even if I fail and it unbearably persecutes me. I remember the words of Thoreau: “Wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society”. Oh, annoying life! Unbearable conventions! Stupid talk!… Goodbye, note, even you cause me anger.

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It Is Amazing How the Need for Money Makes Existence Worse

It is amazing how the need for money makes existence worse. Forced, most take it for natural, but the truth is they are slaves without knowing it. Naturally, some do not share the same fate. And what weight they do not carry on their backs! Knowing one’s need for money leads to endless psychological torture. “For how long? When will I free myself?” And worse when neediness takes over the bulk of routine, which is the most common situation. Many do not understand, anesthetized. But living up to a contract, having obligations to honor, doing religiously what one would never do if he did not has to… is that, by any chance, life?

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There Is a Wall Between Independent Thought and Popular Thought

There is a wall between independent thought and popular thought that almost always makes repugnance between them. The interest of the masses is, by definition, contrary to individual interest. This means that to endorse popular discourse is to be contrary to oneself, is to see one’s own singularity diluted, is to be, in short, a nobody. And, of course, the nobody envies the dissident, the holder of the courage he lacks, so “the nail that stands out is hammered.” The coward rejoices at the approval he gains from his cowardice, feels accepted and safe. On the other hand, he lacks a headstone so he will not be forgotten… That’s all right. His friends will never let him miss the headstone.

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Hues of Vanity

What is vanity? Or rather: how does it manifest itself? The immediate impression of vanity in modern times refers to the refinement in dressing, in behaving. Is that reprehensible? I do not think so. The effects of the care in dressing, as well as those of adorning one’s own house, or cultivating a beautiful garden, are positive. The human being respects what is beautiful, he is inspired, he wants to be beautiful as well: beauty, therefore, ramifies. Therefore, I see vanity, in this nuance, as positive. However, there is in this quality a destructive manifestation associated with immodesty, pride, presumption. There is in modern man’s psyche a terrible impulse towards the affirmation of his value. A veiled will, although wild, which manifests itself in the attachment to one’s own ideas, in the need to gain respect, agreement, and whose substance is summed up in immaturity. Someone who takes himself seriously lacks a conscience. How can one look sincerely in the mirror and not laugh?…

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