Tag: philosophy

The great drama of the one whose life is filled with existential torment is that there are no valid answers to his questions other than the ones he himself validates. How can one bear it? Add skepticism to existential restlessness, and one has certain despair. The skeptic tends to reject possible answers to uncomfortable and unverifiable questions: from this stems his misfortune. He cannot accept what religion, esotericism, mysticism says; he is programmed to reject what he has not experienced. One can open an astrology book and find satisfactory answers for everything; one can take comfort in Christian salvation, Buddhist deliverance—but not for the one who refuses to believe. Every existential restlessness leads to a dilemma: to accredit by comfort what one receives without full proof, or to throw oneself into limitless affliction. Some, like Pascal, add a dose of reasoning to belief; others seem doomed to dissatisfaction.

I read mystics with real pleasure. Mystics: men who claim to see what I do not see, who argue with what I cannot prove. And pleasure, of course, to know myself eliminating to the last trace the ignorant presumption that characterizes the man of this century responsible for molding me. I am happy to see that there may be others with faculties that I do not possess, that I do not represent the human model in the fullness of capabilities. To me, reading them is always a lesson in humility.

It is disappointing to see that fame never fails to chain and corrupt. Exceptions are very rare. And the consequence of this is that success, even if deserved, comes to destroy. One looks into the past and discovers the lack of authentic idols, idols that, while rising, remained true to themselves. And so biographies are closed describing pitiful sketches of personalities who allowed themselves to be overshadowed.