Frequent contact with fatalities, especially those resulting from human brutality, is an element that has a decisive effect on a character. Much of literature and philosophy cannot be properly appreciated if we disregard it. Those who have lived through the horror of a war, for example, see the words acquire a weight that is sometimes difficult to convey, because the seriousness of what is said can only be grasped by those who also grasp the motivating experience, which is partly attainable through imaginative effort, but never as intense as the real thing. There are authors subjected to a dose of bones, blood and misery whose character, if it is strange to us, is a sign that we are not capable of analyzing it.
Tag: philosophy
Man Is Never Given the Chance to Do…
Man is never given the chance to do everything he wants, but equally, he is never denied the chance to act at all. Everything is always between these two extremes and, most of the time, one can do more than one supposes. One cannot, however, act in the past or move forward in time, and such impossibilities often embarrass. Such impossibilities, in fact, can only constrain, and until one learns to despise them, one doesn’t value the much, even the surplus, that one can take advantage of.
Worries and Small Mistakes…
Fortunately, worries and small mistakes, even if they are plentiful, pass without any effort being made. They simply pass, and with an ease that sometimes seems miraculous. Then, mind refreshed, spirit restored, there is a new opportunity to return to the principal. The hardest thing is often to maintain this certainty with patience: there are times when the view darkens, and all one can do is hold back and wait.
The Search for Identity
The search for identity involves, first of all, recognizing the stable element in the most disparate and distant manifestations, i.e., recognizing the cohesion that emerges during the development of the personality. Sometimes the task is not easy, and this cohesion is not identified in actions, but in a more or less manifest intention, without which what is experienced becomes confused. Identity exists, however, because the individual does not fall apart or become someone else—and finding it is always revealing.