The most estimable class of people is the one who lives mediocrely from home to work for decades without making too many plans, letting life run. They make children, they get married, separating or not. So retire and end their days with their face stuck on a television. I imagine this pattern and say: Deignified! Worthy of the most ardent praises! And all other people seem to me, in different hues, diminished and enslaved by their own desire.
____________
Read more:
In our days there is a narcissism and an excessive concern about success that are a clear sign of lack of maturity and discernment. No one else accepts be mediocre. One either see himself above what he is, or he sees himself better in the near future. Of course, that can only lead to depression. I wonder how lighter the life is to those who say in front the mirror: “You are mediocre! Your existence makes no difference to the world! In a hundred years, no one will remember you!”
____________
Read more:
I threaten to press the key and, before pressing it, a wife cheats on her husband. My finger touches the keyboard and another consort repeats the action. I do not close the front line and thousands of wives — or would they be millions? — cheat on their husbands, on time, in various countries and several languages. Two thousand short stories Nelson wrote in series, day after day, for ten years, around the same theme: adultery. So it is just the question: would not he have exaggerated? Could not he perhaps have written a little less? From home, I hear the belt snap on the neighbor. No, no, no… Nelson undoubtedly got it right.
____________
Read more:
I closed this work and felt, for the first time, absolutely humiliated by a book. I thought I had some intelligence deficit. And I thank God I never published a line. I, you see, were already a reader of Dostoevsky, and had read six of his books, including the main ones, except The Idiot — and I appreciate not taxing the book by comic… — I thought, among other things, the following: I am immune to nihilism. The response was clear to me in Dostoevsky’s works, and I never even questioned: “Dostoevsky spent his life talking about nihilism, wrote hundreds of lines about nihilism. Who knows the theme has no relevance?”. And Pondé, welcoming me and teaching me how to use my brain, threw me into a nihilistic abyss, where I felt existence weigh. I read his essay and saw that despite two or three thousand pages read, I knew absolutely nothing about Dostoevsky. To summarize: I had never noticed God’s manifestations in Dostoevsky, which allows me to shoot: I had no idea who Dostoevsky was. Of course, I saw God when Sonia reads Lazarus’ passage to Raskolnikov, but I never saw God in silence. And there is everything: Pondé showed me that in Dostoevsky, God is present in silence. I closed the essay decided: I urgently need to leave this thing of studying. But, after, I thanked there being a Pondé and said to me: I need to reread each of Dostoevsky’s books. Today, I think I got the choice right.
____________
Read more:
