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| QUOTATIONS 540-573 |
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| 540. By looking at the animal world around us, it is not difficult to observe that it is divided, mainly, into predators and prey.. Of course, the position of some small number of animals is relative in this regard, for depending on the circumstances, they can sometimes be predators and sometimes prey. Moreover, we, the humans, consider such a division as natural, even beneficial for the common good of the animal world, and have no moral objection to the fact, for example, that wolves to survive have to kill and eat sheep. But what about the position of man himself in the animal world at large (for Man is , undeniably, an animal)? Is he a prey or a predator? With the exception of the fact that on very rare occasions man can become a prey, he is most certainly not only a predator but probably the most voracious one. And this state of affair the majority of us (vegetarians are excluded) also find quite natural and morally acceptable. Finally we must look inside the human species - in what relation men stand to each other. And if we are not totally (or intentionally) blind we would see that, as in the animal world, some men, usually the small minority, act as predators, for, by analogy with their animal counterparts, their behaviour, short of actually eating human flesh (which, by the way, was still practised quite recently in some remote parts of the world) can be safely called predatory. At the same time, the reaction of the majority of mankind to such a behaviour is definitely reminiscent of that of prey. Yet, very few of us would consider this as a natural phenomenon. Most would strongly object, in public at least, to such a state of affairs on moral grounds. But why do we apply different standards to the animal and human worlds? What makes us, humans, so different? The reference to God, who has allegedly created all men equal and put Man above the rest of his creation, cannot be considered as valid. For first, it has to be proven that God exists and, second, that if he does, he is indeed a proponent of equality among men and a champion of Man as the supreme and separate from the rest of Nature creature. Barring that, just by looking at people with the unobstructed by religion or ideology eyes, it is easy to see how different they all are. The few want more than anybody else have and are willing to do anything to get it from the rest, for there is no other place to get what they want and as much as they want. And these are the human predators. The rest, who are more or less satisfied most of the time with what little they have, are reluctant to defend it, unless their very physical survival is at stake. And often, even that is not enough to encourage them to resist. And they are the prey. Moreover, since such a division has been observed from the times immemorial, we should have enough courage to admit that such a division must be natural too. And if it is natural, we can do very little about it. Some quantitative adjustments can be made through social legislation (provided, of course, there are means to do it), but the qualitative division of mankind on predators and prey will always be with us. 541. Hamlet's tragedy is a tragedy of a man torn between his overwhelming sense of justice and truth and his inability to hate those who commit injustice and kill the truth, or, to be more precise, to hate them enough to act upon it. What is even worse, he perceives the absence of hate or resolve in his heart as a grave character flaw and desperately tries "to correct it". And although he is constantly in rage over the evil deeds of various villains, he is equally constantly frustrated by his own "weakness" of not being able to properly respond to it. Hamlet's tragedy also lies in the fact that, although he has very little in common with the society he is, by virtue of birth, a part of, he accepts, nevertheless, the code of behaviour this essentially alien to him society impose on and demands from each of its members under specific circumstances, which in his case is to become a cold-blooded killer to avenge the murder of his father-king. This conflict between Hamlet as an individual, thoughtful and sensitive, more inclined to studying and contemplation than to actions, and Hamlet - the son of a king, the warrior, who is expected to act in a resolute and, if necessary, ruthless way, is his main source of suffering. Thus, Hamlet's tragic dilemma is that in order to fulfill the societal expectations, which he automatically perceives as his own, and to murder his father's murderer, he has "to kill" first Hamlet-the man, his individuality, his essence. At the end, Hamlet-the prince wins and Hamlet-the man loses, yet not so much by his own choice as by virtue of circumstances, which are beyond his control. Nevertheless, the deed is done - Claudius is killed by Hamlet-the prince and Hamlet-the man has to die also, for at this moment his physical death becomes simply a formality. Hamlet as a unique individual is dead already. 542. The majority of people can be roughly divided into two groups - the Rational and the Irrational. The defining attributes of the Rational are their flexibility and willingness to accept the alternatives. What sets the Irrational apart is their stubborn single-mindedness. Yet, in the war which is called Life the stubborn irrationalists always win over the flexible rationalists. As in the game of "chicken", when two cars race towards each other, risking the seemingly inevitable and deadly head-on collision, it is the Rational who , realizing the impending disaster, would swerve first to avoid it. The Irrational by their very nature are incapable either to foresee or fully comprehend danger. For what best characterizes the irrational man is the lack of imagination, a kind of foresight of several possible outcomes of his actions and the evaluation of their comparative affordability. Instead, the only thing the irrational man knows ( or believes to know without doubt, for he seldom has any doubt) is what he wants. Nothing else matters, the things couldn't go wrong because they shouldn't. The irrationality starts and finishes with desire, whereas the rationality begins with wish and ends with possibilities. The crucial advantage the irrational people have over the rational ones is their willingness to put on the line everything they have, including , in the extreme circumstances, their very lives in order to win, even if the fruits of victory are negligible in comparison with the sacrifices they would have to make. And this willingness to give up their lives is the strongest proof of the irrationality for no gains can compensate the loss of life, since the dead cannot enjoy the fruits of victory. The Rational understand this. They know the odds too well and refuse to play "a game of chicken". And they loose every time when confronted by the irrational maniacs. The Irrational are as fearless as the mad and ignorant are. The Rational are as cowardly as the sane and knowledgeable are. And yet, the first rule the world. Their power is based on the interconnectedness of lives. They act as terrorists who hijack an aeroplane full of rational people and by threatening to blow it up, which would kill everybody on board, including them, they gain control over it. The Rational have no other choice but to submit. The Irrational seem to be indestructible. Like the warriors growing from the planted into the ground dragon's teeth, as soon as one is destroyed, there is always another to take his place. Where are they coming from? Alas, we produce them. How? There are, perhaps, the seeds of irrationality in each of us, waiting for that combination of inner and outer conditions to burst forth. 543. If Nature is the only realm that is, and since Man is, unquestionably, a part of Nature, anything he does is, albeit in the most general sense, natural. Therefore, to ask a man to act in accordance with Nature, as the Stoics did, is redundant, unless it means to live as animals do, i.e. by just satisfying the basic physiological needs in order to survive. But if measured by such a standard, not even the most primitive aborigines live completely according to Nature. Nay, comparing Man's relationship to Nature with that of the other animals, the very existence of Man as a species must be an unnatural phenomenon, for unlike the rest of them Man consumes not only to satisfy his physical needs, which are more or less permanent, but also according to his imagination which seems to have no limits. And, nothing Man can do, short of the reverse evolution back to his primate ancestors, would change this fact. 544. For most of parents their children are extensions of themselves or, to put it metaphorically, children are "parts" of parent's body. But they are the "parts" over which, as time goes by, parents have less and less control. And the more a child grows up, the more it becomes the source of one of the most frustrating emotion all parents of grown-up children share in common - the feeling of powerlessness to protect "yourself" in a child which is a part of you. 545. How many times, how many times I've tried to start my life again, to come back to a place I'd passed before, and where, perhaps, I'd failed And from this point, I would choose another route, the new direction, only to find, in due course, that neither leads to the perfection. Yet, stubbornly, I'd trace my steps to the mistakes I've made again, condemned, like Sisyphus, to roll life-stone, knowingly in vain. 546. Besides blind instinct to survive, which Man shares with other animals, what else makes us to cling so tenaciously to life? Why do I want to go on living? Is it to read a few more pages in the Book of Life, the book which has no beginning nor end? Am I just curious about tomorrow? Or is it the desire to experience, for as long as possible, the things I like in seemingly endless repetitions? Or is it the apprehension of how my death will affect those close to me? 547. Sooner or later everyone, no matter how defiant he is, submits, however reluctantly, to the inevitable. 548. This is my lot in life, and I do not complain - I nothing have to lose, nor anything to gain. 549. Living one life, i.e. your own, is difficult enough without trying to live, even vicariously, the lives of the others, no matter how near and dear they are to you. 550. Show me a thoughtful and considerate man or a woman, and I will show you someone who had his or her share of pain and suffering. 551. Justice is the most sought after and the hardest to obtain commodity in life. Children, who are yet ignorant of the ways of this world, expect it automatically, and much of the childhood distress is caused by the persistent frustration of this expectation. Consequently, the growing up can be partially defined as a process of learning the hard truth that what we are striving for the most is, usually, attainable the least. 552. Happiness is the acceptance of your limitations, both subjective and objective, and the ability to live with them. 553. If Descartes had live today, he would probably have rephrased his famous maxim "I think therefore I am" into the one which would be more appropriate for our times - "I am on television, therefore I exist". 554. The only hope of ever obtaining inner, or any other, peace lies in leaving the ruins and minefields of the Past and, without ever looking, like Lot's wife, back, head for the virgin, unexplored, and hence still promising meadows of the Future. 555. The real poetic license is not giving oneself the unrestrained freedom to use the unusual grammar or the words the meanings of which only a few select can guess, but allowing oneself to "undress in public" emotionally, spiritually and intellectually - the kind of luxury the overwhelming majority of us can ill afford in our day to day existence. 556. In this "free" world of ours, it seems enough, let say, to ask for a simple glass of water in a wine cellar to be immediately branded at best as an unreasonably extravagant eccentric or, at worst, as a sinister subversive. 557. For the countless millennia human beings were conditioned both by Nature and by Society to struggle for the sheer physical survival. Now, when the modern technology through the seemingly endless increase in productivity relieves almost everybody partially, and the ever growing numbers of people completely, from such a necessity, the pent-up potential energy intended for this struggle will, looking for the outlet, turn inward and lead to their self-destruction. 558. Psychiatrists' offices and psychiatric wards are full of people who were brought up to believe that being persistent in trying to achieve one's goal in life will sooner or later bring success. 559. It is no wonder that the Christian preachers talk so much about God's boundless compassion, limitless forgiveness and bottomless mercy, for they are themselves too often in a much greater need of God's benevolence than the most of their flock. 560. One is never completely free until one's parents are dead. But then, as much as has been gained in freedom, has been lost to loneliness. 561. Do not reprove a man for being hopeless and pessimistic, for most probably his own life caused him to be so. For how one who never had justice done to him can believe in justice, and one who had never received mercy can hope for mercy? 562. Contrary to the popular saying, the opposites are rarely attracted to each other for any significantly extended period of time, and even then mainly out of curiosity - the fascination with the unknown. But the people we really like are those we are comfortable with, who, after all has been said and done, are essentially the same as we are. 563. A place of exile and a place of refuge is the same place. 564. To do one's own thing, or to do the right thing, that is the modern question. 565.The greatest curse of Humanity is the inability of an average ordinary man to think for himself, which makes one a gullible and credulous victim of any false prophet and deceitful demagogue who may come along. 566. When a woman says to a man "I love you" what she really means is "you belong to me". When a man says to a woman "I love you" what he acknowledges is "I belong to you". That is why the first is so eager (in anticipation of a gain) and the second so reluctant (in apprehension of a loss) to utter this pregnant with so much meaning phrase. 567. People believe in conspiracy theories ( almost everybody has at least one) because it makes them feel important enough to be conspired against. Otherwise, they have to accept too brutal a truth - that in reality, most of the time, nobody gives a damn about them. 568. Nobody familiar with the past and comparing it to the present can deny the wisdom of Ecclesiastes who had declared almost 3000 years ago that "there is nothing new under the sun". It is especially true in the field of so-called "fine arts", where the forms sometimes give the appearance of progress and evolution, but the essence never changes. Hence, the fear of repetition of what had been said and done by the previous generations which could suffocate the creative impulse of the present one and, as a result, lead to artistic impotence. Modernism which was driven by such a fear of repetition is the most striking testimony of this phenomenon. 569. It is not what one denounces and rejects but what one proposes instead that counts. 570. While the Present is trying to correct the mistakes of the Past, it is preparing the ground for those of the Future. 571. Repeatedly frustrated, yet seemingly undying wish of the public for politicians to reflect the views of those who elect them has as much chance of fulfilment as an attempt to make pigs fly. 572. Psychologically, some people live in the world of reality, others - in the world of fantasy. And though, these two worlds, almost by definition, are irreconcilably different, each has its apparent advantages ( for otherwise, nobody would dwell there) and obvious disadvantages ( for no place is perfect, as we all know too well). How the members of these two, psychologically distinct groups had reached their respective states of mind and settled in their opposite worlds of consciousness is hard to say, unless, assuming that it all started in childhood, the life of each individual member could be traced from the earliest infancy till the mature adulthood. But, despite the claims by Freudian psychoanalysts, this is next to impossible. Nevertheless, one thing is clear that by whatever route they had arrived there, each group grows accustomed to its specific world and develops an overwhelming dependency on its specific psychological environment. Of course, every now and then "the realists" indulge in fantasies and " the dreamers" often have to face "the reality check", but most of their lives are spent in diametrically opposite worlds. And needless to say, they do not mix well. Moreover, any attempt either to bridge the gap or to leave one world and move into another, whether it is done voluntarily or under the compulsion, is doomed to failure, which sometimes can reach the tragic proportion. 573. If the worldly wisdom is but an acquired immunity to the vagaries and vicissitudes of Life, then no one is wise since nobody is immune to its pain. |
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