Si tuviera que besarte me encargaría de que fuera la última vez. De hecho evitaría cualquier primera vez.1
I keep finding these words coming to mind lately. I’m not really sure why and, to be honest, I find it a little disturbing.
The Greek relationship with hybris — there is a thing we as modern Americans simply lack entirely. Caught up as it is with the conception of the deinos, this should come as no surprise.
The sense of stepping beyond the bounds of safety and acceptable behavior, of leaping beyond sophrosyne, of daring what the Gods have decreed is beyond one — this tempted the Greeks constantly. Every Greek knew within him the desire to escape the boundaries that had been set for him and was held back only by a fear of the punishments one should endure if he went beyond those boundaries. And it is this holding back through fear that defines the Greek feeling of hybris: one sees hybris as something essentially belonging to those without fear, to those who are truly noble. Think of the myth of Prometheus who could not be held back by the restrictions given to him by the Gods: he took the gift of fire and saved man and suffered for eternity for it. This seems to be what is essential to the Greeks — the notion that what is best in life is acquired by audacity and one will pay for the moments of happiness with a great deal of pain forever after and yet this is a good trade.
The greek conception of hybris is the putting into practice of the claim, “man at his best is man at his worst.”
How different this conception is from the Roman myth of Remus!
Combining La Rochefoucauld with Bierce, we get the following:
Political correctness, n. An attempt at virtue made by the vicious so lacking in substance that it is itself a vice.
Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.1
Among the various books I’ve started reading since I got back from tour, The Devil’s Dictionary ranks especially high on my list of new found pleasures.
When in Austria last year, my love for mountains was born simply by being exposed to mountains for the first time in my life. Driving through California approaching San Diego has reawoken that love and reminded me that I need to spend more time among the mountains because they are among the most beautiful things nature provides. Their enormity makes everyone and everything seem small. But there is a sort of freedom in that smallness, a sense that this enormous thing in which one exists is not void, not absence, but majestic and wonderful.
Of course, there is still terror to be felt in our isolation in a world that will not defend us or care for us. There is enough, but it is not provided for us — it is simply provided and we may do what we will with it. A man in the mountains is like humanity in the universe — yet, though the man will be humbled by his experience, mankind will not be humbled by its position in this small corner of habitable space in the world.
After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.1
Mankind must care for itself just as each man must care for himself. Our value, our beauty, depends upon our existence and our ability to perceive ourselves. The joys found wondering amid these mountains have meaning only as long as humans still exist.
In contrast, the environmentalists’ concern for Mother Earth seems absurd. Concern for other lifeforms is reasonable and just, but the concern for life itself is madness. Life will go on existing after we have all died out. The victim of our global climate changes is not the planet (which cannot die), but only ourselves.
If we want to commit suicide, we will — just as generations of “brave” soldiers have in pointless wars. Environmentalism’s selflessness seems confused: the only ones endangered by human behavior are humans.
Who could endure solitude? to live among the enormity of nature where there is no one else? Anyone who, having felt this solitude even as a remote image for a day, believes himself truly capable of it seems slightly mad — if not fully mad. Men are not meant to be alone. Those who always wish for it have no sense of what it would imply. To live only by one’s own abilities — this we are not ready for in modern civilization any longer.
Not seeing what is in front of you — this is stupidity. The opposite — seeing more than is in front of you — is insanity — and for this reason insanity is so often coupled with intelligence. A world with too much meaning is preferible to a world with too little meaning.
I find myself thinking about death a great dealy lately. I think it started as a recurring theme of my thoughts after I realized that I am turning 25 in six months. 25 is an age I think I never really imagined reaching. I imagine getting old, but it’s indefinitely old — there’s never a number associated like 25 and still not having done so much with my life.
But what one has done with one’s life is relative and, even then, how much one has gotten out of one’s experiences is not directly proportional to one’s experiences.
Regardless, death keeps coming to mind. As I considered the fact that I am not entirely content with the tattoo on my stomach (which is somewhat poorly done and on a stomach that would not be impressive without the tattoo), I thought that at least it wouldn’t last forever. But it does last forever in my life. It’s there for another seventy five years perhaps, but when it’s gone, so will I be gone.
Death is an abyss that corrupts as one stares into it — because there is nothing to be seen, one invents something to see. Amid void, man invents demons. This is the meaning of paranoia — where there is no evidence to the contrary, one assumes the worst.