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| QUOTATIONS 498-539 |
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| 498. Though the hope in all human emotions and aspirations depends the least on the external proofs of its soundness and validity and has been observed to survive on the most meagre diet of them, yet, even it would eventually starve to death in the sometimes seemingly boundless desert of relentless misfortunes. 499. While happiness is enjoyed unquestioningly, misery is forever looking for the causes and culprits. 500. In ours, ever so increasingly enlightened and liberated times, to understand something or somebody malevolent and destructive means more and more to accept it as the inevitable, and then, by implication, even to condone it. 501. Any prolong relationship of two persons - be it between friends, spouses, or even parent and child - often leads to the gradual accumulation of mutual hurts and grievances, both real and imagined. As years go by, such a relationship begins more and more to resemble a room cluttered with too many pieces of furniture. In such a room the occupants have to continuously improve their manoeuvring skills to avoid or to minimize the pain of hitting against the seemingly omnipresent protruding parts and sharp edges. But eventually no amount of adroitness and dexterity can protect them from harm, and if they want to continue staying in this room together they have to periodically clear it at least of some, preferably the oldest objects. 502. Nowadays, more and more often, when listening to women, one gets the unmistakable impression that the only reason men were put on this earth is to make women happy. And God forbid if they fail, individually or collectively, to live up to these expectations. 503. Unlike their less enlightened cousins still populating what is left of Nature, the human animals feel compelled to justify their decisions and actions based on them. And it has to be acknowledged that through the long evolutionary process they have perfected these ultimately self-serving skills to a remarkable degree. As a consequence, any attempt by however well-intentioned others to convince an average man or woman that their decisions or actions are wrong is almost invariably an exercise in futility. It is only when they themselves are either ready, or have no other choice but to "start anew" because of the unforseen unfortunate results of their previous decisions and actions, can people look back at them with more or less impartial eyes and admit, however reluctantly, having been wrong. The new hopes make confession of the old sins not only easier but necessary. 504. Many a poet, both in the past and , especially, in the present, write as if following , unknowingly, the advice Cicero had given to Atticus: "Even if nothing enters your head to write about, write anyhow". 505. The consumption, either direct or indirect, ever growing both in quantity and in variety, seems to be the only real justification for life in America, and now , apparently, to an increasing degree in the rest of the world. 506. Never before in human history have so many people proclaimed so forcefully and openly their individuality and insisted on having almost absolute freedom to "do their own things", and yet, at the same time, displayed such an oppressive uniformity in the ways they feel, think, speak, dress, eat, etc., etc.. 507. Oh, the cruel irony of finally having freedom and suddenly forgetting what you wanted to do with it. 508. Man is not only the most social of all animals but also the most flexible one. That is why, given the approval of the society at large (or any subgroup he is a part of), Man can adjust to and be comfortable with the most bizarre or perverted behaviour, as long as the majority of the society or of his specific subgroup either engaged into it or accept it as normal. 509.If the world is truly "a stage, where every man must play a part",then the overwhelming majority of the performers I have seen are very bad actors indeed. 510. Do not blame the fate, just try to avoid the avoidable. 511. Only those survive the injustice who accept its inevitability. 512. I've always felt deep inside me, instinctively perhaps, that there is something inherently vulgar in any act of selling and buying. But selling and buying of the works of art strikes me as being downright obscene. 513. The only way, if any, to cure the dominant nationalistic majority from its racism is to make it feel how it is to be on the receiving end of prejudice. For the empirical essence of human nature prevents us from the true understanding of and consequent empathy with what we have not experienced personally. 514. A lot of what one is ostensibly saying while conversing with others is, basically, thinking aloud and talking to oneself. 515. Life of a man is an endless search for a kindred spirit. 516. There is a stamp of our personality on everything we feel, everything we think, everything we do. Looked at a close range, each one of us is remarkably self-consistent. 517. The knowledge that one had been treated unfairly gives, at least, a consolation of not having to blame oneself for one's misfortunes. 518. Nobody had asked me if or when I wanted to come into this world, and nobody is going to tell me if and when I may leave it. 519. People are judged just as much, if not more, by how they do it as by what they do. For, whether we are aware of it or not, our aesthetic objections often outweigh the moral ones. Then, if it is true, humanity, in all fairness, should be given more credit for its high aesthetic standards and, at the same time , to be more forcefully rebuked for its low moral ones. But this, of course, depends on one's very personal feelings and notions of what is more important, both in general sense and in each particular situation. 520. The entire modern art is, essentially, the monstrous outgrowth of the powerful but ultimately futile desire not to repeat what others had done before, especially when one feels unable, for whatever reasons, to do it as well as they did. 521. By creating a work of art (be it a painting, or a poem, or a piece of music, etc.) which has no clear definite meaning, one can rest more or less assured that he hasn't repeated what somebody else had done before, because meaninglessness comes in almost infinite variety of forms, while meaningfulness has only a few, in the same way as there are limitless number of the wrong answers to any particular question, but seldom more than one which is right. 522. While few of us are able to have the life we wish, many can refuse to live the way they don't want to. And those who managed to succeed in doing that should be also grateful, for it is not a small feat for anyone to accomplish. 523. Many paradoxes and mysteries of human life are the artificial constructs of the mind stubbornly refusing to accept that man is as much a part of Nature as plants and animals are, and as such does not deserve any more consideration from or any special place in it. 524. In the struggle between Nature and Civilization, although it appears at the present moment that the later is getting the upper hand, the final outcome is by no means certain yet. And, if judged by the fate of the extinct species of yesterday, Nature will continue on long after the last traces of Man disappear from the face of the planet Earth. 525.When you ask others to understand and to have empathy with you, isn't it, in essence the same as asking them to live and to suffer, if only vicariously, through what you had to? For how else can they gain understanding and to be filled with empathy? Therefore, do not be so insensitive, or even cruel to wish, though unintentionally, that others experience you pain, for they surely have plenty of their own, which you too, in turn, can neither understand nor have empathy with, unless it is the same as yours. 526. The unquenchable thirst for justice, the insatiable hunger for truth - these are the redeeming qualities that keep humanity from self-destruction by its murderous instincts. 527. The industrious will work hard even if paid little, the lazy ,no matter how much they are paid, would put their best efforts into avoiding work. Clearly, people tend to behave in a manner which is natural to them ( unless, of course, they are forced to do otherwise). So, why do we all maintain this myth of the material rewards being the best stimulus for hard work? 528. It is "only human" to try to justify injustice by finding some faults with its victims. It is also "only human" to conveniently forget that those faults are, in main, our own invention, and to use them as an excuse to inflict even more severe punishment on, by now, obviously "deserving" target. The hardest thing for a victimizer is to admit, even to himself, the real reasons behind his actions. Every time the new injustice done to the same victim, the new, more elaborate justifications must be invented and added to the old ones, which seem by now not sufficient enough for the ever escalating level of abuse. And also, each time the new justifications lead inevitably, in turn, to the new injustices, which begin to be seen by the perpetrator more and more as a well-deserved retribution. Thus, once entering into such a vicious circle of committing injustice and finding justification for it in a victim, and then believing one's own invention, committing new injustices and finding new justification for it, and so on so forth, it is very difficult to get out of it, unless one is willing to admit being wrong and unjust from the beginning, and very few of us are capable of it. Undoubtedly, this is a universal phenomenon, for it may be observed wherever there is a victimizer and a victim, be it in relationships between individuals, families, clans, nations, religions, ideologies, etc.,and as such has to be recognized as one of the spiritual and behavioural diseases afflicting mankind. 529. Left to its own inherent internal dynamics, the homogeneous society will always, psychologically, reject the strangers in its midst in the same way as the body rejects, physiologically, the transplanted organs. And in the same way, as the body , carrying the transplanted organs, must be cared for by continuously administering the anti-rejection drugs, the body politic, afflicted with racism, has to be perpetually treated by never ending efforts, both educational and judicial, to make the co- existence of different ethnic groups in one heterogeneous society as harmonious as it is humanly possible. 530. As far as the competition between monotheism and polytheism is concerned, it may appear on the surface as if the former, for all intent and purpose, has replaced the latter. However, in reality, people, who are moved more by their daily experiences than by the abstract ideas, could never accept that one God is capable of satisfying all their numerous and various needs. Catholicism, with its multiplicity of patron-saints responsible for every conceivable kind of human actions, is the best manifestation of the inherently polytheistic nature of man. Even the Jews of the Old Testament, seemingly the most staunch and consistent monotheists of all, in reality had just substituted the hundreds of different gods by the hundreds of different rules, which covered, in the same way those numerous gods did for pagans, all multiple aspects of their lives, and turning, in the process, without realizing the blatant contradiction of such a transformation, the omnipotent Creator of Universe into a petty tyrant, allegedly preoccupied with seemingly endless trivialities of their daily lives in the exactly same manner the old pagan gods used to do. 531. To be complete, any communication, be it verbal, visual, written, etc., requires at least two persons and, no matter how different they may be, the efforts of one are as important as those of another. 532. The pornographic movies of the so-called "soft-core" variety pretend to provide the answer, albeit not a very imaginative one, to an old question "what does a woman want?" Sexually-wise, of course. It is done, invariably, by the endless repetition of the few worn-out versions of the "fake orgasm", showing how the "real" woman expresses her sensual feelings when the "right" man finally comes along. They are also supposed to boost man's ego and ease his insecurity in the era of women's sexual liberation. However, it is doubtful that either female or male viewers are getting from these movies what they really need or want (as far as men are concerned , nobody seems feel obliged to even ask the same question "what does a man want?"). For the insidious message of tremendous potentially destructive force hidden in them is that unless ordinary men and women feel and act like pornographic stars, i.e. like sexual maniacs in the perpetual heat, something is fundamentally wrong with them. Yet, contrary to popular belief, the most damaging (and not just from the man's point of view) aspect of the "soft-core" pornographic moves,, is not the undeniable exploitation of women as sexual objects, but the reduction of man to even lower role of a "dildo", the device for woman's masturbation. They tell the average man that unless he is endowed with an oversized penis and can make a woman moan, scream and melt under his touch, he is certainly not the "right man" and, probably not a man at all. Furthermore, the additional implications of making a woman the final judge of whether "the sex was good" and a man ultimately responsible for it are even more sinister. It is no wonder then that the men who are the heavy consumers of pornography display much more hostility toward women, and in the extreme cases present real danger to them, than men in general. It is also not uncommon for such men to develop complete aversion to sex or even experience psychologically induced impotence from the all-pervasive fear of not being able " to perform" up to the standard of the pornographic movies. On the other hand, and in the totally opposite direction, some of these men become extremely promiscuous, for they develop the need to constantly prove to themselves and to almost every woman they meet their sexual prowess. Yet, after each new encounter, these casanovas are never absolutely sure about it and have to do it again and again, turning in the process into the sexual maniac -obsessives. All in all, the pornographic moves, especially of a "soft-core" kind with their deceptive to an "average guy or gal" appeal, do significantly greater damage, both in scope and in depth, to a man than to a woman. 533. I've made a pact with the World and its people, though they are not aware of it. I will obey and do what I am told to do, for I am neither a fool nor a hero, and I know they are stronger than I am. But over my thoughts and feelings they have no power. They can have my body, but my brain and my soul belong to none but me. 534. As flesh cannot exist without skin and skin without flesh, so attitude cannot exist without behaviour and behaviour without attitude. 535. Addiction is a result of indulgence, indulgence is caused by excessive self-love, and the excessive self-love is incompatible with and detrimental to caring for others. Which brings us to the inescapable conclusion that an addict must be the existential egoist. 536. The one who decides to lead the righteous life sooner or later is confronted by the necessity to defend oneself from the unrighteous world. And to fight the enemy successfully one has to use the same weapon. Failing to do that, i.e. to become unrighteous oneself, dooms one to defeat and suffering. Thus, suffering has to be accepted as an inevitable price for steadfastly remaining righteous. This world gives one only two choices - either to be a scoundrel or to become a martyr. Whatever the middle ground is left, if any, is no wider than the blade of the knife, balancing on which is extremely difficult and, at times, could be quite painful. 537. As opposed to the modern ones, the ancient philosophers, starting with Socrates, and probably even before him, could be characterized as the sensible pragmatists. In their view, the most important goal of philosophy was to bring happiness to its practitioners. For if it does not, what is the point of studying and practising it (these two elements were never separated in their minds, in contrast, again, to the modern philosophers)? But right from the beginning they realized that a philosophically-inclined man is, of necessity, a contemplative and, provided he is intellectually honest and consistent, a good and just one. Such a man, clearly, is very vulnerable and, inevitably, will suffer from the external evils and, as a consequence, become an unhappy one. Thus, the obvious contradiction arises - search for happiness leads, logically, to unhappiness. The most complete solution to this inherently unsolvable dilemma could be found in the teachings of the ancient stoics. Predictably, it was totally divorced from human experience. The stoics, probably the earliest practitioners of the Orwellian newspeak, were trying to convince themselves that pain is not pain, death is not death, etc.. The suffering from the external forces was declared non-existent, and the wise man was exhorted to feel happy on the rack. Thus, in the ironic development of a philosophical idea, what started as down-to-earth pragmatism had eventually evolved into the most contradictory wishful thinking, defying the basic common sense. 538. Overwhelmed by the fear of death, Man would embrace any imaginable notion of immortality, even such an abstract one as continuing to live through atoms, into which everything eventually disintegrates. 539. No matter how hard you may try to please everybody, people would never forgive you their suspicion that precisely because of this you may be better and brighter than they are. |
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