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| QUOTATIONS 702-738 |
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| 702. The most important question, the one that only very few are courageous enough to ask, is this - does an ordinary life, the life of misery and drudgery, the kind of life the overwhelming majority of humanity leads, worth the enormous efforts each one of us has to continuously make to live it? 703. It is never too late to start a "new" life if the old one didn't work out. For even if one lives but a short time after that, the satisfaction of at least trying to do something about what looked for many, seemingly endless years like a completely hopeless situation will make one's last days more bearable. And, of course, the praise and envy of those who didn't have enough courage to do the same could only enhance the feeling of finally doing something right. In case one manages to live somewhat longer after the "drastic change", one gets to know how much more life has to offer, both of good and bad (which is a gift and a privilege, no matter what) than one previously could hope for. Plus, hopefully, there will be enough time left to assess the wisdom of "the decision" and maybe even to return, unless it's too late, back to the old life if, after the experiences of the "new" one, it doesn't look anymore as bad as it seemed before. And, finally, if one lives long enough there is a good chance one may have another opportunity to try it all over again and experience all the above mentioned benefits more than once. 704.For the majority of people a continuous absence of appreciation by others of what they are and what they do brings the deterioration of self-esteem and depressing, even disabling self-doubts. But not so with the driven and ambitious ones. For the less the are recognized and rewarded the more they praise and overvalue their achievements and, especially, themselves, using exaggeration and self-aggrandizement as a substitute and a compensation for the unrequited need of admiration and fame. 705.Ideally, everyone would like to be an only child, and those who had to share their parents with siblings usually go through the rest of life looking for somebody who will give them the undivided attention. Needless to say, in today's world of the rampant cult of individuality, often bordering on the outright egotism, such a search is getting to be increasingly futile. 706.Teaching is probably the only profession left (after the demise of religion forced it to surrender its predominance to the secular education) in which one can repeat the same thing again and again, year after year, and still be listened to with attention and respect. And since these commodities are notoriously always in short supply, having ready access to them, albeit at times fraught with some unpleasant side effects, can be very addictive. 707. It isn't the lack of self-esteem that the majority of the so-called "maladjusted" people suffer from, and recovery of which is viewed as the main remedy by those who "treat" such people, but the lack of esteem by others, the lack of harmony between an individual's desires and capacities and his external situation, the lack of recognition and of a proper place in the society, which according to a person's self-estimation he deserves. And this, of course, no therapist can provide. What those therapists do, at most, is distract their "patients" from the understanding, admittedly potentially overwhelming, of the true reasons of their unending distress, and divert their energy and efforts into a direction of the ultimately futile self-discovery, futile because the possibility for an individual to transform oneself to suit the world is as illusory, though not as obvious, as the possibility to change the world to suit an individual. 708. Trying to change yourself while living is like trying to rebuild your car's engine while driving. 709. The main cause of the human unhappiness is the forever gnawing at our hearts and minds consciousness of unfulfilled expectations. And, as the years go by, the pain produced by this knowledge is getting progressively worse. Thus, the only people who could be called happy with any degree of certainty are either those who can honestly say they have realized their full potentials (unfortunately, there are too few of them), or those who have more or less successfully managed to "anaesthetize" the awareness of not being able to do so. Fortunately, there are enough of them, most of the times, to maintain the societal peace, however precarious it may be. 710. Only the very lucky few are given the opportunity to reach the "level of their incompetence". The rest are never allowed to get nowhere near it. The majority realize it but vaguely, which makes them, nevertheless, always feel somewhat dissatisfied and perpetually driven to search for that elusive "happiness". The minority are not only fully aware of their plight but also cannot reconcile themselves to it. And as they grow older, they are getting progressively disillusioned, hopeless and depressed, and develop, as a result, all kinds of psychological or even psychiatric problems. 711. Quite often, in the process of conversation some people get very surprised and upset when, expecting to be talking to "a mirror", which was supposed only to reflect and to echo, they find themselves faced instead with somebody's else "image", which even has the audacity to talk back. 712. When we ask others to understand who we are, what we really want is for them to unconditionally accept (and even admire) our own self-perception, as the only true portrait of ourselves. In other words, we want them to look at us through our eyes and, what is more, to like what they see. When they, either implicitly or explicitly, acquiesce in it we praise them for the ability and willingness to understand us, but when they don't, we blame them for the lack thereof. 713. Not too many people could be classified as absolutely selfish egotists who, no matter how much good they receive from others, never feel either inclined or obliged to reciprocate in a likewise fashion. On the other hand, there are also very few that could be called limitlessly selfless altruists who, regardless of how often and how much they are harmed, have neither wish nor will to retaliate. Consequently, the majority fall somewhere in between these two extremes, i.e., they would, if possible, repay a good with a good, and an evil with an evil. 714. A life of a true philosopher must, of necessity, be an uninvolved and uneventful. For not only the preoccupation with day by day living leaves no room or time for contemplation, but also it is hard, or even impossible to maintain the vaunted philosophical detachment and objectivity when one is an active participant in the worldly affairs and exposed to all its vagaries and vicissitudes. On the other hand, since philosophizing is a mental process which requires, in order to be well-grounded and have any validity, as its primary raw material the actual human experience, the one who personally lacks it due to withdrawal from the active life has no choice but to depend on that of the others. Such a "second hand" experience would be inevitably altered in this vicarious act of "appropriation" and therefore cannot be fully relied upon. And even if a philosopher spends the first half of his life as a busy "man of the world" in the very midst of the teeming masses of humanity, and the second one as a contemplative recluse using his own former life as a material for philosophical speculations, since memories get notoriously distorted with time, they again cannot be trusted to make valid conclusions which are the end product of the true philosophy. Hence, we are faced with the dilemma which has only one unavoidable answer - there is no such thing as "a true philosopher", nor ever was or will be. 715. Finding oneself in the company of a teacher (regardless who else is present) one has but the two choices: either to rejoice at the opportunity, or to resign to the inevitability of being enlightened. For short of leaving the place immediately (and with a good excuse at that) one is going to be made feel, one way or another, being in a classroom and getting instructed whether one has asked for it or not. 716. The question what do women, or men for that matter, want is the wrong one to start with, since as soon as life begins to be perceived as governed by the wants instead of the needs confusion and uncertainty ensue. For while the needs of a human being of whatever gender are more or less clearly and narrowly determined by one's present socio-biological conditions, the wants constitute the complex product - the intricate mixture of the individual and collective imagination - and as such refuse to explicitly and unequivocally acknowledge the limitations imposed on them by the specific circumstances. Thus, the question "what do women want" can have no definite and final answer because "the wants" have no definite and final limits. 717. There are, undoubtedly, more depressed people in the so- called "developed", industrialized world than in the "underdeveloped" one. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that in the "developed" world the ever expending service industry relieves its inhabitants from many mundane tasks and chores required to maintain daily life, leaving them with a lot of free, unoccupied time on their hands to wait for the much more significant events and experiences, than cooking and washing the dishes, come their way. Yet, in the lives of the ordinary people the great events and exciting experiences are very rare occurrences indeed. Thus, the time saved by using other's labour is spent in the idle anticipation. Hence, the boredom and frustration when nothing exciting is happening and the depression as the inevitable result of it. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of people in the Third World are so much preoccupied with the basic difficulties of day to day survival that they have neither leisure, nor energy left to indulge into the luxury of being depressed. 718. A lot of contemporary poetry present the reader with the same dilemma which confronted the observers of the emperor's new dress. All their senses, especially the "common" one tell them that there is nothing out there. And yet, the sophistication of form, the richness of vocabulary, the overall high literacy displayed in such poetry strongly suggests, nay, demands from the reader to acknowledge that there must be more, much more to it than meets the eye. For those who are unwilling or unable to submit blindly to such a "demand" there is no other alternative but, to ask the poet personally, when such an opportunity presents itself, about the meaning of his/her writings. Unfortunately, the answers usually given, instead of the expected clarification, create in the minds of the listeners even more confusion and doubts both about the poetry and their own ability to understand it. 719. A young religion or a young ideology can be compared to a just-built ship. Its body is firm and sleek and freshly painted. The rigs are sound and well-fitted. It is strong enough to withstand the storms of resistance. It is ready and eager for a speedy voyage into the irresistibly alluring and promising future. And its captain - the founder of a young religion or ideology - is the best possible captain to navigate it through the uncharted waters of adversity and struggle. For he is the one who has designed the new ship and knows better than anyone else in the ship's company where it is going. But as years pass by, a captain and a crew are being replaced again and again, and each time those who succeed are less certain of the purpose and the destination of their journey than the preceding ones. And the hull of the ship - the body of religion or ideology - is being continuously covered more and more by the barnacles of numerous rituals and regulations which increasingly impede the ship's progress. Eventually, for this ship to remain sea-worthy, those barnacles have to be stripped to restore the body to its original purity and integrity, so that the ship may regain its former beauty and speed. Christianity has done it to Judaism, Reformation - to Catholicism, and Islam, in a certain sense, to both. Needless to say, the work of stripping the barnacles is never done. 720.One of the essential marks of a great intellect is the almost religious faith it has in its ability to comprehend the numerous complexities of the world. Perhaps it's only a delusion; nevertheless, such a delusion in a great intellect is so powerful that it gives one possessed by it the supreme self-confidence to fearlessly face any opinions or ideas no matter how contrary they may be to his own. Which makes such a person unusually broad-minded and tolerant - the traits that unmistakeably distinguish a truly great intellectual from the rest. 721. "Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it." Yet, those who remember the past too well are, usually, so much preoccupied with it that they are incapable of doing the full justice to the present. 722. The work of art, no matter how great it is, never presents the entire process but only the outcome of a lengthy progression of the interconnected thoughts and feelings, usually at the point when they can no longer be contained and demand either to be intentionally released or, if not, would more or less spontaneously burst out, anyway. 723. Philosophy is the most egalitarian of all arts. For the "sine qua non" of philosophy, its fundamental, yet, never fully acknowledged premise is that all men feel, think and act essentially in the same way. For how else a philosopher can extend the observation of one (himself) or of the very few particular subjects to cover, universally, the rest of mankind? 724. The people we enjoy being with the most are those who bring out the best in us, and the least who bring out the worst. For the first make us feel good and the second - bad about ourselves. Of course, "the best" and "the worst" in this case are defined by us in a very subjective manner indeed. 725.They say that a tiger, as a rule, would not, unless challenged, attack a man. But if, accidentally, it tastes human flesh (usually of a victim of a natural or man-made disaster), this inborn "taboo" is broken, and from then on such a tiger becomes a "man-eater" and begins to treat a man just as another kind of prey. The similar phenomenon of the drastically altered patterns of attitudes and behaviour can be observed in marital relationships. Spouses who weren't sexually active (except with each other) before marriage would, habitually, remain faithful as long as the marriage lasts. But if for whatever reason an adultery is committed, a spouse who did it (and with relative impunity, i.e. the marriage remained intact) will repeat it as often as the circumstances would permit. Here again, once a "taboo" is broken it cannot be restored, for, apparently, the breaking of the taboos is the irreversible process. 726. It is so hard for any man to finally make peace with himself, that even if this peace is but a creature of the illusions one should be compassionate enough not to point this out to such a man. For since this, with such a difficulty obtained peace will eventually be broken by the forces of the inner contradictions anyway, why to hasten it? To live in a fool's paradise or in a wise man's hell - shouldn't everyone be allowed to make choice for oneself? 727.The creation of a genuine work of art is akin to an act of sacrificing. And the artist is both the one who sacrifices and who is sacrificed. In this act of creation as a sacrifice the artist offers his blood and sweat, his joys and sorrows, his pain and pleasure, his despair and ecstasy. And the God to whom all this is offered is his public - the readers, the listeners, the viewers. The price of great art, the art that can move all by penetrating and touching their innermost being is the great pain of an artist and nothing less, even the great talent, would suffice. The greatest work of his life "Concierto de Aranjuez" was created by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo when he was experiencing possibly the greatest pain of his life - his first child had been just lost in the childbirth and his wife was herself within a hair's breadth of death. No one who hears this magnificent Concierto can remain unmoved by its heart-piercing sadness. But was this immortal music worth the tragedy it was produced by? The artists, of course, have no monopoly on pain and suffering. Neither do they, contrary to the popular mythology, experience them more acutely than the rest of us. But given the universality of tragedy in the human existence we all have to deal with it somehow. And the artists do it by creating art. The pain has to be explained to be endured, and to sustain the hope that all is not in vain. 728. There is no light without burning, and therefore destroying, however gradually, what is the source of the light. 729.It is no so much the ability to discern the truth as the courage to acknowledge it that separates "the enlightened" from "the benighted". 730. Yet another definition of Man - the only animal that lives knowing it must die. 731. Since, finally, I'm absolutely certain that Life has shortchanged me (at 55 one can hardly be mistaken at least about this), I now look forward to death as the only opportunity left to me to get even with those who were favoured by fortune much more than I. 732. The ordinary unhappiness comes from trying to be what one is not, the real tragedy - from the struggle to be what one is. 733. The blind know how to listen, the deaf - how to see. 734. The poet's task is to articulate the reader's innermost thoughts and feelings. And he accomplishes this by articulating his own. 735. The egoism of the successful people is different, both in its nature and its origin, from that of the unsuccessful ones. For in the first it is the principal cause of their success, in the second - one of the reactions to persistent failures. The successful people tend to be naturally, i.e. unintentionally, self-centred, for the single-minded dedication they unfailingly exhibit and which is absolutely necessary for success, makes them oblivious or indifferent to all but those who could either help or hinder their progress. The egoism of the unsuccessful people is, on the other hand, of an entirely different nature, for they are often inclined to attribute their numerous failures to paying too much attention to the welfare of the others. Consequently, they resolve in their future actions to discard, as the main impediment to their success, any such consideration. Therefore their egoism is not natural but intentional and, depending on fluctuation of their fortune, can either increase or decrease. 736. Outwardly, the poor and powerless find solace in being cynically passive, and the rich and powerful justify their position by being enthusiastically confident and forward looking. Inwardly, however, they seem to trade places - the first, in fact, are incurably optimistic, for all they hope to gain depend on the better future, while the second can't help but to be apprehensive about the future where, having already all that could be wished and more in the present, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. 737. Thou shall not use thy superior knowledge as a bludgeon to prevail and subdue but as a torch to raise up and enlighten. 738.Thou shall not use the backs of others as the ladder's rings to climb higher, but as the opportunity to relieve them of their burden by offering your own back to carry it. |
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