Affliction and revolt: this is how the spirit seems to manifest when it contrasts the final feeling of not belonging with the obligatory need to belong to something. To detach oneself from the whole is an impossibility, even though the incompatible character of one’s nature is very clear—one must be an integral part, one must work for an impossible conciliation! And so, existing always seems to result in conflict, in open war that only stimulates negative feelings. Compulsory entry, exit only in weakness or submission. To stop talking is easy before closing the eyes, taming the veins, and annulling the bursts of the mind…
Tag: philosophy
Renounces and Apostasies
Curious to note the posture of those whom I might call my prose models. Nietzsche, over the years, disowned his master with unparalleled violence. Cioran, though alternating outbursts and laments, did similarly with the one who he referred to as his “model.” It seems a natural course of life to slowly shed the old precepts, the old admirations, and what once shaped and nourished an expanding spirit. Cioran said in life only breakups matter. Perhaps because breakups are usually acts of courage. Renounces, apostasies, gradual and definitive detachment: all this seems, if looked at from a distance, to contribute to a kind of liberation.
Forced by Circumstances
It is amazing how torture it is to feel forced by circumstances to apply one’s own effort to something that delivers nothing more than money. To apply one’s own effort, and almost always the bulk of one’s own time… I see the average artist in despair before the seemingly insoluble question: how not to be useful to other human beings, or at least, how not to be outrageously useful, strictly useful, and still survive? How not sum up one’s own life in a creeping utilitarianism? How to be an artist, and not a commercial manager, a designer, a salesman? How to be an artist and, at the very least, abstain from any financial necessity in the production of one’s own work? It seems that the supreme merit boils down to being lucky…
The Substance of Life Is Time
The substance of life is time: to live is but to define the application to it, on a smaller scale, during the space of twenty-four hours, and on a larger scale, during the indefinite interval of a lifetime—and I am but a spreadsheet-man! In any case, the immediate decision is always the most important, and planning, the later it comes, the less fruitful it is. The truth is that the distribution of time involves, in the first instance, the ability to visualize the desired result which, as if it were not uncertain enough, has to fit the primary needs and the longing for the consummation of something that justifies one’s existence. Generally, these are conflicting spheres, and generally the former ends up sucking up the bulk of the vital substance. If we knew, at least, the circumstance of the last breath and if there was not such vagueness about the horizon, everything would be easier: distributing time would be an almost pleasant task and the fruits of life would be much more meritocratic. However, the plot would lose in emotion and suspense. It seems very difficult to live and not sin, on the one hand, by precipitation and, on the other, by cowardice.