Exhaled Spirals

« Die Natur, die Dinge unseres Umgangs und Gebrauchs, sind Vorläufigkeiten und Hinfälligkeiten; aber sie sind, solang wir hier sind, unser Besitz und unsere Freundschaft, Mitwisser unserer Not und Froheit, wie sie schon die Vertrauten unserer Vorfahren gewesen sind. So gilt es, alles Hiesige nicht nur nicht schlecht zu machen und herabzusetzen, sondern gerade, um seiner Vorläufigkeit willen, die es mit uns teilt, sollen diese Erscheinungen und Dinge von uns in einem innigsten Verstande begriffen und verwandelt werden. Verwandelt? Ja, denn unsere Aufgabe ist es, diese vorläufige, hinfällige Erde uns so tief, so leidend und leidenschaftlich einzuprägen, daß ihr Wesen in uns „unsichtbar“ wieder aufersteht.

« Si j'ai choisi ce livre, c'est à cause du titre : Les fleurs bleues. [...] J'aime chacune des lettres qui le composent, surtout le e silencieux à la fin du mot bleues, une lettre que j'ai tout de suite repérée et qui m'a attirée presque autant que la couleur, cette voyelle qu'on n'entend pas mais qui est indispensable pour que les fleurs soient vraiment bleues, au bout du compte.

« She’s there every day at the lake, a tiny speck from up here, going from jetty to jetty with propelling arms. One-two-three-four-breathe, one-two-three-four-breathe. There are so many layers of space between us and her, and all of that space is alive. Up here there’s thin crisp air, and down a bit there’s a cloud, just one, just hanging. Below that the birds, which are as big as her from this perspective — buzzards, pigeons, crows, magpies, swifts, all swimming at their own depths in the sky. Then there are the insects — the gnats, the midges, the mayflies, the banded demoiselles, the emperor dragonflies, the stoneflies, the mosquitoes, the net-wings. A swift plummets and plucks one off the water’s surface just a foot in front of her windmilling right arm.

« La filosofía no necesita ni protección, ni atención, ni simpatía de la masa. Cuida su aspecto de perfecta inutilidad, y con ello se liberta de toda supeditación al hombre medio. Se sabe a sí misma, por esencia, problemática, y abraza alegre su libre destino de Pájaro del Buen Dios, sin pedir a nadie que cuente con ella, ni recomendarse, ni defenderse. Si a alguien, buenamente, le aprovecha para algo, se regocija por simple simpatía humana; pero no vive de ese provecho ajeno, ni lo premedita, ni lo espera. ¿Cómo va a pretender que nadie la tome en serio, si ella comienza por dudar de su propia existencia, si no vive más que en la medida en que se combata a sí misma, en que se desviva a sí misma? »

« We must get over the error which makes us think that a man’s life takes place inside himself and that, consequently, it can be reduced to pure psychology. Would that our lives did take place inside ourselves! Then life would be the easiest thing imaginable: it would be to float in its own element. But life is as far as possible from a subjective phenomenon. It is the most objective of all realities. It is a man’s finding itself submerged in precisely what is not himself, in the pure other which is his environment. […] This unity of dramatic dynamism between the two elements, the I and the world—is life. […]

« I was very wretched, for the aftermath of this last bad time has been horrible. I have been despairing, not because of my illness, because I have found meaning and purpose in that, but because of the burden I am to other people and because I was convinced that everyone must be shrinking from me. […] I was alone with self-hatred and that is utterly vile.

« Es una hermosa noche de verano. Tienen las altas casas abiertos los balcones del viejo pueblo a la anchurosa plaza. En el amplio rectángulo desierto, bancos de piedra, evónimos y acacias simétricos dibujan sus negras sombras en la arena blanca. En el cenit, la luna, y en la torre, la esfera del reloj iluminada.

« In its severe forms, depression paralyzes all of the otherwise vital forces that make us human, leaving instead a bleak, despairing, desperate, and deadened state. It is a barren, fatiguing, and agitated condition; one without hope or capacity; a world that is, as A. Alvarez has put it, “airless and without exits.” Life is bloodless, pulseless, and yet present enough to allow a suffocating horror and pain. All bearings are lost; all things are dark and drained of feeling. The slippage […] is first gradual, then utter. Thought, which is as pervasively affected by depression as mood, is morbid, confused, and stuporous. It is also vacillating, ruminative, indecisive, and self castigating. The body is bone weary; there is no will; nothing is that is not an effort, or all-consuming. Like an unstable gas, an irritable exhaustion seeps into every crevice of thought and action. »

« I crave that feeling you get just before you go to sleep, when everything gives in. The fight ends. The fight of our thinking lives. […] Rest awaits. The relentless ticking clock of your conscious awareness prepares to be smothered, your limbs prepare to go slack, the things that hurt will stop hurting, the whole frenetic circus of it all is about to collapse. There’s nothing for you to do, or work out. »

« There’s a metaphor I heard a long time ago when I was a philosophy student: an actress is on stage in a theatre when she sees a fire in the wings. She tells the audience there’s a fire and that they must get out. The audience thinks this is part of the play and they ignore her instruction. The more animated and urgent she becomes, the more delighted they are by her passionate and brilliant acting. There’s nothing she can do to speak beyond her role as an actress; every attempt only affirms the role.