The value of life can only be given by the service we give to the cause of the people. This may sound a bit harsh and general, but it is the only truth I have come to know with all its consequences. No one can sit in the flowery meadow like Ferdinand the bull, and smell the beautiful flowers with impunity. You are a man, therefore you must live like a man and among men.
You live like a human being if you live fairly. If at the bottom of everything you do and say is the intention: not to harm people. If you try - without flash or vanity - to help people. Sometimes just by not being silent about simple truths. Sometimes just by not telling what others lie about. Sometimes just by not saying yes when everyone is shouting, "Yes, yes!" A lifetime of consistently not agreeing with what people lie about is greater heroism than occasionally protesting it loudly and chest-beating.
On your deathbed, you will rest easy only if you have served justice every day, with all your consciousness. Sometimes the truth is very simple and petty. But don't be picky. That is the value of life.
So the real experience for man is first and foremost this: to know himself. To know the world is interesting, useful, delightful, frightening, or instructive; to know oneself is the greatest journey, the most frightening discovery, and the most instructive encounter. To go to Rome or the North Pole is not as interesting as to learn something real about our character, that is, about the true nature of our inclinations, our relationship to the world, to good and evil, to people, to passions. When my intellect was mature enough to do that, that was all I was looking for in life.
Things are not just in themselves: they have a perspective. Therefore, never say of a phenomenon: "such or like" - only say: "from this and this perspective it looks like this."
All the world can want from you is a bargain and a half-solution. What matters is what you have contracted with yourself and your character. There is no bargain in this contract.
Life takes from a character a more cruel interest than usurers. You have to pay for everything, for independence, for pleasure, for physical health, but most of all you have to pay for the contract you have made with your character and your work. You can never say to this prisoner, "My head hurts." Or, "I'm in the mood for something else." It is easier for a galley slave than for one who has contracted his character to work.
There are two ways of sinning against the body: by debauchery or by cowardly, vain, and offended asceticism. It can bear neither and responds defiantly and fatally to both insults. The flesh can only stand honesty.
Admitting that a man can't help. There is no woman and there is no friend. Accepting that maybe you don't need help: this despair, this hopelessness, these momentary solutions, this eternal insolubility of all that is human, is the very condition for remaining human and expressing yourself in the world in a human way.
This book is kind of like the old grass books, which wanted to answer the questions with simple examples, what to do if someone's heart hurts or God has left them. He is not talking about ideas and heroes, but about what has to do with people. Its author wants to teach his fellow men by learning, learning from the ancients, from books, through them from the human heart, from heavenly signs. It wants to convey elementary knowledge about the basic truths of human life. Sándor Márai dedicates his work written in 1943 to Epictetus, his dear Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and all the Stoics, from whom he learned about power, cheerfulness, and fearless living.
Recommendation: I recommend this book to Seneca, because he taught that there is no man without morality. And to Epictetus, because he taught me what we have in our power. And to Marcus Aurelius, who learned from Epictetus what is in our power—and was patient. And for Montaigne, because he was cheerful and didn't care what happened to his work after death. And to the Stoics in general, who comforted me when there was no comfort on earth, and taught me not to fear death, nor slavery, nor poverty, nor disease. And to one or two men who were my friends and true men. And a woman or two.
Reader, this book wants you to be honest. Written by a man whose knowledge is modest and finite. This book wants nothing more than all the countless books that wanted to talk about the fate of man in the world in the long past and in the past. A person wants to tell you how to live, eat, drink, sleep, be sick and stay healthy, love and be bored, prepare for death and come to terms with life. This is not much, because people in general, and the author of this book in particular, know little about themselves and the world. But it is enough for a human task. We can't do anything else in life.
This book will therefore be honest, reader, and will not talk about ideas and heroes, but only about what has to do with people. Its author does not want to teach when he writes this book, but to learn. He wants to learn from the books written by the sages and initiates before him, he wants to learn from the lives of people, as far as he has been able to observe and understand them, he wants to learn from the signs of life, that is, from the letter, the human heart, the grasses and the heavenly signs at the same time. Because all of this together shapes human destiny. This is not a scholarly book, just the kind taught in elementary school. Whoever wrote it does not know the absolute truth and is often wrong in the details. Because he's human. But he is looking for the absolute truth, and he does not brag if he is wrong in the details. Because he's human. So this book will be like the old grass books, which wanted to answer the questions with simple examples, what to do if someone's heart hurts or God has abandoned them. And whoever knows better, says better.
Every sage whose thoughts I have managed to get to know has taught me that we should live and write as if our every action were the last in life, as if death would put an end to every written sentence. Only the awareness of death without sentimentality, fear and irrational cowardice gives our life and our writing a true attitude. One must live and write fatally, so calmly, very attentively, paying equal attention to the world and ourselves, our intellect and passions, the intentions of people and our relationships with the universe. This is the behavior worthy of the only human being: God does not require more from us. And there is no greater sin and more vain attempt than wanting more or something else than what God wants from us.
The most interesting phenomenon that we can encounter in human life is human character. Nothing is as interesting, surprising, unpredictable as the process during which a person reveals his character traits. No matter what the world shows: landscapes and natural wonders, the unfathomable variations of the earth's flora and fauna, nothing is as special as the character of each person. When our interest reaches the knowledge of human character while observing the things of the world, we feel at once that this was our real task in life. Everything else we learned only enriched our knowledge. But our soul will only be richer by knowing the characters. Because this is the most direct human experience, yes, the character is the person himself.
And because the character is the person himself, we try to hide it in vain: a person can hide his character just as little as his physical being cannot be hidden by any kind of fog cap. We can wear fake beards and fake clothes for hours and hours in life, but in a moment all the costumes fall off us and the reality is revealed. A movement, a word, an action reveals our true character after all: the masquerade ball can only be occasional. And meeting the true characteristics of a character is the greatest human experience we can have.
Along with getting to know our character, we also need to get to know the nature of our body. But only as the nature of a bad and unfaithful servant. Our character is the master, our intellect commands; the body is only a servant. He must also be treated sensibly and fairly, impartially and strictly, as a servant prone at every moment to disloyalty, desertion, and rebellion. We have to get to know its nature and tendencies, and as much as possible, we have to agree with the world, the possibilities, the flow of the eternal rhythm of life. He is a servant and quite childlike. The inclinations of our organs are as rudimentary as the demands of a small child. The body wants everything, all pleasure, all kinds of satisfaction, and it wants it all the time. In such cases, it must be dealt with strictly. But the material from which it is made is also related to the earth, water and stars: there is something eternal in the body, at the same time as it is ridiculously perishable and transient. In the very short time when this servant is at our disposal, we must get to know his nature and quality, his secret needs, and with benevolence and experience give him everything he may need to do his work and not disturb our character and reason. But the character should not tolerate any kind of slave rebellion.
I mean: we have to maintain our rank even against our senses. Only with great attention, fairness and experience can we remain masters of our senses. He who is violent against himself will fail. This is a wild horde, an army of the senses. They fight against humans with all their weapons, like goat-goat wrestlers *, they do not respect any rules of the game, they kick, pinch and bite. There is something terrifying and great about their rebellion. A man lives as long as he has passions. But passions can be nurtured. Selfishness, lust, physical hunger and thirst can be humanized. Greed can be transformed into useful human will. Just as useful forces suitable for human service can be tamed from wind, fire, and light - even if they are so powerful in the world, whip the sea and set fire to forests and cities, man is stronger! – that's how you can control the forces and emotions that permeate the human body and rule over our hearts and nerves. These wild forces can be trained for human service. This requires a lot of experience, a lot of sadness, a lot of will and superhuman strength.
No kind of behavior that wants to build a kind of life order and agenda outside of the human order is entitled. For man, the things and actions of the world have meaning only as long as they want to affect people and cooperate with the human world. This cooperation can be direct or indirect. But no one has the right to live for their own sake, yes, they don't even have the right to create.
Man, in his immeasurable pride and vanity, is willing to believe that he can live against the laws of the world, violate them and rebel against them with impunity. As if the drop of water said: "I am different from the sea." Or the spark: "The fire will not touch me." But man is nothing more than a simple part of the world, just as perishable as milk or bear meat, as everything that appears one moment on the world's great market, and then, the next moment, goes into the garbage or the cesspool costs Man, in his physical nature, is not even a high-ranking element of the world; rather, it is just a collection of materials that are pitifully doomed. Stone and metal also live longer than humans. Therefore, everything that we represent in the world through our body is insignificant. Only our soul is stronger and more permanent than stone and metal - so we should never see ourselves other than in the volumes of our soul. The power that expresses itself in the perishable bodily tissue is not only a component, but also the meaning of the world. This force is the human soul. Everything else we mean and show in the world is ridiculous and pathetic.
You shouldn't live with superstitions. Friday, thirteen, eye-rolling, the buttery explanation of numbers and signs were brought to our world by the Gnostics, the congregating and chaotic sects that flooded into the Rome of early Christianity, Syrians and Alexandrian flag chewers, sloppy text commentators, foaming-mouthed and sly fans. Young Christianity did not yet have the strength to beat those who beat them with their eyes, for Friday it says: "One day", for thirteen: "A number like the others." It was a turbulent and fermenting time. The Stoics no longer ruled in Rome, the Christians did not yet rule. Man was abandoned in the face of his nature and nature. He was afraid, deprived, superstitious and conjured. You are human, you have faith, you know that there is order behind the symptoms, a higher intellect. Get over the superstitions.
But also know that the proud self-awareness of your reason and faith does not discipline and intimidate the more secret forces of the world, which lurk and lurk around you from your birth to your death. The accident, the interplay of numbers, the law of large numbers, the incomprehensible intentions and plans of the earth, the air, the rays, all this is unforeseeable. You can keep a little humility and trembling in your heart. The world is not only bright and dark, no; the world is also confusing. There is not only radiation, light and heat; there are also demons. (Goethe believed in demons.) The world is not only sensible and consistent; magic is hidden somewhere in the symptoms. You shouldn't be superstitious, because that's not human. But superstitions should not be completely despised, because this is superhuman, indecent pride. It is better to treat our superstitions with gentle scorn than someone who smiles - but is also a little afraid.
The passing years, the older age, really give something, for which it was worth enduring the many fatigues, humiliations, and painful trials of life. They not only give experiences, because experiences in themselves do not have much educational power, as we can see everywhere in life: people, even with certain tragic experiences, make the same fatal mistakes, even if they know the consequences in advance. No, the big advantage of being older is that we can build a system from our experiences, if we are not completely stupid or mean, and we don't want to be gray-haired ponies laughed at and looked down upon by people in our old age! Just like the wanderer, who got to know a complicated mountain system during his wanderings, and upon reaching the highest peak, sees the structure of a landscape, reviews the geological regularity of the connected series of mountain peaks, so we also see the system in everything that happens in our lives and in the lives of others with the passing years. This overview, which comes only with the passage of years, is the greatest satisfaction we can get while learning about human and worldly things.
And because you are a wanderer, every day you have to continue on the path that leads to your only goal, that is to know your soul and the divine content hidden in your soul. It's not easy. Just think of the many temptations that invite you to take a rest, interrupt your journey, and take care of something else! A beautiful woman is standing on the side of the road and beckons you with a charming smile. Your body and senses respond to this call, you want to mingle with this beautiful body and surrender to the sweet intoxication of lust. But you should know that vain and lustful moments are followed by complete helplessness and bewilderment. Because your soul wants something else, and when you feed your body with the sultry spices of another body, the soul remains hungry and thirsty. Money, orders of merit, titles, ranks come your way: but what do you do with all this, if the attention, fatigue, time, which is the price of worldly recognition, distracts the best forces of your soul from knowing the divine? Buddies croon along the road and invite you along, encouraging you to venture: what can you gain from all the business and entertainment if you waste away at the gaming table or the pub table, while your soul asks with a tormenting urge: "Why are you stealing time here? It's all childish and mean. You have to go on, because you have work to do." That's roughly how life speaks to you, every day, every moment - it invites you to rest, to indulge, to have fun, to be satisfied with vanity and power. But when is this not your job! You are a wanderer and you have to go on every day . You don't know how long you will live, and whether you will have time at all to reach the final goal of your journey, to get to know your soul and the divine? Therefore, go on every day, with swift feet and poor. Because you are a wanderer.
The answer to the question, whether the experiences are against the cheap or dangerous, powerful temptations of life, must be answered in the negative. Such temptations are false ambition, emotional opportunities such as love, acting, worldly success, the temptations of the senses, excesses in food harmful to our health, drink and intoxicants, physical passions and even more harmful and dangerous mental and character deviations such as revenge, lies, greed. All these dangers and temptations tempt man with repeated repetitions at every age. Experience, which teaches us that all exaggeration, lies and impure intentions lead to disappointment, misery, humiliation and illness, does not protect us from being victims of these temptations. Only loyalty to our character can keep us from falling, not our experiences. There is no absolute good and bad in nature; but it is necessarily bad for man, which we cannot reconcile with our character with impunity. So here, as always, when we have to make a decision, we should not research whether the offered temptation is good or bad in itself, but only ask: is our character compatible with what we intend to commit? Worldly experience is not as important as a thorough and unconditional knowledge of our character. There are inexperienced people who are loyal to their character and therefore do not fail the secular exam, and there are old, shrewd foxes who cannot adjust their desires to their character, and therefore fail anyway and fall shamefully on their noses.
To believe that we can retreat from passion is just as crazy as if someone seriously believed that he could build a house and shelter out of sand in the middle of the desert against my number.
Passion is the meaning of our lives just like reason, moderation and considered defense. Only the person who can surrender to the passions of his body and character with the measure and sincerity appropriate to his nature can be complete and conform to the order of nature with intelligent obedience. But he won't be an animal, because he knows the limits, where he has to hold on tooth and nail in the windstorm that broke through, the limits of reason. Do not deny the body, but treat it fairly and superiorly, as the trainer treats the beast. Do not deny ambition, but mark its limits. Do not deny the senses, but walk and rise in the midst of the rebellion of your senses like the captain among the riotous sailors of a ship caught in a storm: with rigor, understanding, relentlessly and heroically. You can't do anything else. That's the most a person can do.
The true cause of most human misfortunes, misery, hopeless, shameful and sinister human situations is most often not the evil of people, but simply stupidity. That certain "reluctance to do good" that the Bible talks about. A murderer is a rather rare human phenomenon. Murder requires strength, individuality, imagination, and strong emotions. It is possible to defend against murderers. and the one who breeds human misery and tragedies to the number of millions is the pious and quiet person, who turns his head away when he sees some meanness or injustice, does not pick up the phone, even if he could help with this warning, carefully walks around human misery and walks past without saying a word , though without much sacrifice or effort it could restore a man's zest for life, or help a wretch. The man who goes to war with the world for its tyranny is not so dangerous as the polite, sly, and thoughtful mediocrity, the humming mediocrity, the cowardly and lazy selfishness. This is the capital sin. This is the kind of person who makes the world what it is, and we owe it to him if we have these experiences we say goodbye to the human world at the hour of our death without much regret.
The constant collision of the call and attraction of the world and the worldly role alien to my being and inclinations caused a lot of complications and confusion in my life. Because people are social beings, and this beautiful tendency in them is not at all to be despised: it is right if people seek each other's company, learn each other's views during meaningful and friendly conversations, and if most of the time they get nothing else from being together than the loneliness of life its temporary release, this alone was worth the little effort and inconvenience that such gatherings cost. Man is a social being, and most of the time he develops the good qualities of his character in company: he who converses fairly and patiently, tries to get to know his fellow men's views on the world and the issues of human destiny in thoughtful and pleasantly worded dialogue, answers objections patiently, does not judge ahead of time, formulates it well his answers and then, out of adaptation and politeness, he refuses to deviate from what he has come to know as the truth: such a person actually performs the most beautiful human task when he goes to a company, and there he learns the opinions of his fellow men and does not ignore his own. But most people are driven only by vanity, by the desire to escape from boredom, into the circle of their fellow men; and it is very rare that we spent time among people, and afterwards we did not feel guilty, as if we had been a part and accomplice of some debauchery or debauchery. One must be very careful to avoid invitations to houses where the householders hope for some sort of social or professional status from the "company". At such social gatherings, the invitees are seen as a kind of rare commodity that the householders sell on the market of worldly vanity.
I have always avoided social life, its worldly or professional versions. I didn't shy away from offending people who invited me to their house for their vanity or misconstrued ambition. "Inviting" is a great art, it requires a lot of spiritual nobility, tact, knowledge of people and situations. And to accept or not to accept an invitation: this is also a question of character, like all human questions.
In company, we have to be careful about those people who never talk to their table neighbor, but always to the whole company, they want their every word to be heard by everyone present, they are careful not to let any of their words slip under the table, they are constantly telling stories, giving presentations to their excellence to prove and charm the company. Such people are liked and invited to the company, because they occupy the consciousness of those present, they provide interest and sometimes a cheerful atmosphere to the gathering. But these men are false prophets: it is not important to them what they say, nor to convince those to whom they speak; the satisfaction of their own vanity is important to them. It is advisable to carefully avoid the company of such people.
Marcus Aurelius says that by the age of forty, a man in whom a spark of reason shines, has experienced and knows everything that happened to people in the time before him, and everything that can happen in the time that follows.
The details may be varied and different, but the basic experience - the common basic experience of all human lives - does indeed happen to all people in forty years. He has lived the passions, experienced the constancy of natural laws, and knows with absolute certainty that he is mortal. Neither Caesar, nor Antonius, nor Marcus Aurelius knew more, and man in time will never know more about himself and the world. Everything else is just repetition.
Behind knowledge is single-mindedness. If you learn something real about life, you will be calm and single-minded.
This single-mindedness does not complain. He doesn't accuse, he doesn't call to account, he doesn't demand revenge, satisfaction, or explanation. Everything human is hopeless. Only the divine is complete, only the soul is not hopeless. What can a person want other than single-mindedness when he turns to the divine with human desires? The initiate is quiet. You know it can't be helped. The most you can do is to do no harm to others and yourself. He who lives towards death, who lives among men, therefore lives in injustice, what can he hope for? If you can train your heart to a kind of calmness and humility, it is almost comforting and serene.
But it is in vain that we say: "He is not touched by the world's yoke, nor by its recognition! Everything is transitory!" - if we do not feel deep down that we have done our duty to the world. I have often felt this self-blame. It is not so difficult to give up what the world offers in vain recognition, entertainment opportunities, social or material satisfaction, and withdraw from people. , to live only for our tasks and for the smaller circle whose human service we have undertaken. It is not easy to do this either, but it is not impossible; they welcome our withdrawal with disapproval, because they see contempt and criticism of worldly things in such behavior; they call us eccentric, but at the same time we also have a certain respect it surrounds the hermit of the Mord, and this respect and recognition satisfies our vanity.Moreover, we are freed from many discomforts when we withdraw from people.
But a voice still whispers to us that we act selfishly and comfortably, when we completely withdraw from contact with people, and wander in the desert of our work and our lifestyle wrapped in the sublime solitude of the hermit. First of all, according to one of the words of the French, all hermits who know exactly the timetables are suspicious - most hermits, who do so out of resentment or feelings of inferiority, know exactly the departure times of the trains, the trains that can take them back to the world! - and around most "great loners" an atmosphere of vanity radiates like the northern light, which only shines, but does not warm or illuminate. Then, not everyone has the right to be lonely. he has a true title who can best serve the cause of men in this way. For no one has the right to be lonely out of spleen*, defiance, pride, or vanity. But if our temper and the nature of our work, by which we wish to serve men, are such that we need solitude for this, then, only then, can we avoid the company of men. But such a worker and such work are rare, and the man who chooses solitude should first consider his conscience carefully.
When life or some human situation forces you to make a decision, be careful to place your decisions within the scope of the law of change: because every "decision" only takes its final form and shape in time.
Decide, but not so unconditionally! Don't be like that at all costs! Not quite! Give human determination the opportunity to play that it needs to fit into the world and time, to place itself between human intentions and the laws of change. Don't want to fix for all time with an oath, nails and hammer what night and morning change something, your heart and mind are forever polishing, changing, shaping something, today, tomorrow and forever. Give the determination time and space to find its true place and form in the world. Make up your mind, but not too much! Decide, but not necessarily! Take action, but at the same time leave everything to time. You will see, tomorrow or a year later, that it was not you who decided, but the volume in which all human affairs are decided: time.
Have you suffered most and most cruelly from vanity? Have you always wanted to prove yourself? Your intellect, your spirit or other, more suspicious and ridiculous abilities, your social security, your acting or your skill in knowing human things? You roamed the worldly market, and you were as ridiculous as the clown * on the sawdust stage of the circus, when he imitates the dangerous stunts of the animal tamers and strength artists. And why didn't you ever think that the approval that you can get in this way is only the occasional approval of a bored crowd with children? A single moment of solitude, of self-knowledge, when you overcame vanity, gave more to you and to the human world than all the stunts with which you displayed yourself in front of the world. A single gesture of humility is a greater feat than any greedy production that people applaud. Think about it before it's too late.
Are you restless because your senses are stimulated and disturbed by this beautiful, young woman, and you have to fear that she will share her beauty and youth with others? But what did you expect from him? Some monastic vow, a grim loyalty? It's not because she's beautiful and young. Think how great a care and concern for him is this fragile beauty and fleeting youth, this evil gift with which the Creator blessed and beat him - this beauty that changes, passes, fades and becomes more fragile with every day and moment? Can you think of something else, can you give your heart to someone else, as your own beauty and youth, can you deal with someone else really, completely, according to your heart and interests? It's as if you want to record a brilliant moment of the morning, or a kind of lighting of the sea, and you wish the world to stay like this forever! Learn modesty, enjoy beauty, and don't expect anything from it other than what it can give. And look for the warmth of life elsewhere; beauty is a cold flame, you can't get warm next to it.
Illness should be accepted with the same humility as a criminal accepts a deserved and just sentence. Because illness always comes from the clash of our character, nature, tempers and passions, weaknesses and sinful tendencies. And if the tram hits you on the street, you are still the cause: why weren't you more alert, more deliberate and more careful than the hostile world!
I'm not saying that you can avoid the bad with caution, consideration and self-control. Illness is one of the natural accessories and tools of life, which creates and destroys everything. But most of the time you choose the method of execution yourself. Nature is a benevolent executioner: if you want it, it offers you a wise and dignified death of quiet combustion, slow firing. But if you don't behave according to your character - assuming you are humane and of good character - it will roast you over a slow fire. This is what you need to think about when the disease attacks you.