Every time I went to the doctor, I couldn't get rid of the embarrassing and humiliating feeling that I was cheating on the good man who, according to his craft and knowledge of people, deals with me with concern and care, but completely hopelessly. Because everything he could recommend - the medicines, various remedies, water or radiation, powders and liquids - might have cured my kidneys, liver or heart, but he could not cure what is the only cause of the disease: my lifestyle, which follows from my character, basic nature and tendencies. Therefore, seriously and politely, to the best of our ability, we always cheated each other, the doctor and the patient. Lifestyles cannot be cured and can only be changed temporarily.
That is why nature, wisely, takes care of diseases: because most people only temporarily relax their passions in the wretched, forced prison. "Il est quelque fois saine d'être malade!"* said a Frenchman. Most people would die at the age of forty-five if they didn't rest in bed for a few weeks.
It is more important than anything else to harmonize our work, inclinations and rhythm of life with the great and eternal rhythm of nature. The movement of the moon, the turning of the winds, the heat of the sun, the currents of the night, all of this shapes our personal destiny, even our Tuesday or Wednesday lifestyle: one hears, from very far away, the admonitions and warnings, the protective and correcting noises of the universe... We must at the same time to live with the sun, the moon, the flow of the waters, the cold and the heat: never against it, always blending into the harmony of the world, the entire order of creation and destruction. Only those who are somehow deaf from within to the sounds of the world stumble in life.
But at the same time, we have to live with our heart, with that other rhythm of life, which is more secret, more hidden, more difficult to know than the order of the flow of the world. Anyone whose heart beats eighty at a willing pace should not want to live like a marathon runner. We must constantly hear the secret morse signs of our body and character, these subtle and powerful messages that determine the true measure of your life. Those whose senses have been dulled by ambition and passion will no longer hear these voices. Such a man lives against body, soul, and the pace of the world; he lives in a way that is not worthy of a human being, so he sins inhumanly.
Your job is tiring, you feel that you could work with more real strength and satisfaction elsewhere, among other people, under different living conditions. Human coexistence is exhausted, your family, loved ones, and friends are a burden on you, and you are motivated by the desire to make new relationships. You already know every nook and cranny of your apartment, and you hope that you will find the comfort of your body and the peace of mind in the new, more modern, more comfortable apartment. Yes, you already know the city where you were born, raised, and matured into a man. Yes, you also got to know the country, which is your homeland, like the miner the mines where he worked for forty or fifty years; you know it not only horizontally, but vertically, with all its dangers and depths. And you have heard about foreign countries, distant worlds, where the conditions for human coexistence are fairer. You are tormented by doubt, urged and driven by the desire to leave your workplace, your family, your loved ones, your city, your country, and forcefully tear yourself away from everything that has been the environment of your life until now. In the hour of temptation, examine your experiences, your understanding, your character, and examine these desires in the knowledge of the true nature of worldly things. New people cannot give you anything that will fundamentally change your relationship to the world; because only you can give yourself something decisive and essential. Similarly, you will remain a worker at the new workplace, and it is up to you how you will create suitable job opportunities for yourself in the new situation. It's all up to you. In the same way, in the new city, in the foreign country, where the conditions of human coexistence are fairer, you will eventually find the same human selfishness, greed, vanity and ill-will that you found hateful in your country; because the basic human nature does not change behind the barriers marking national borders. And you will also be a stranger; and being a stranger always means being crippled. And one of the human laws commands you to always, absolutely, remain loyal to your country, even if this country treats its children tyrannically and unfairly.
When do you have the right to violently change the circumstances, frameworks and situations of your life? In any case, if you hope for the end of your boredom, the satisfaction of your desires, and the fulfillment of your revenge from such a decision. Stay where life has put you, do your duty and fill your soul with truth; you can't get more in the new world, not even in the southern islands. But if one day you find that your work, the environment and the conditions of your life do not match your character - then and only then decide to change. And know that you remain the same within all changes.
You don't have to worry about dressing up at all.
The voluntary vows we make to ourselves - "from tomorrow I won't do this or that, live this way or that, deal with this or that" - perhaps need to be considered even more carefully than our word to people. Because we can retract our word to people if we see fit. , that the world changes around our words, human things are positioned differently around the idea once known as truth and professed in a vow. The truth also changes. But the word we give to ourselves means that we have made a contract with our character, which does not change, and therefore the we have no way to change a contract we have made. If the world despises us because we could not keep our word for some reason of conscience, this contempt can be survived, because the world is not a moral contracting party either. But if we betray our character, we still have a way to live on, but our inner behavior will be uncertain, guilt-ridden and volatile.
Always changing the rhythm of life. Consciously and attentively to exchange work and rest, fasting and abundance, sobriety and intoxication, yes, even care and joy; to consciously stand up from the set table of life when abundance is at its best, to consciously engage in problems and tasks that have an educational power. Do not trust yourself in any situation. At the bottom of everything is the divine thought, the spirit that governs the world: and this spirit does not tolerate any kind of self-confident amusement, self-righteous satisfaction, blinkered and lazy satisfaction. Always evolving and changing, smoothing over and sacrificing something, always giving when you get, always passing on what you've got, one way or another... Just not living "safely". Always waiting for the storm and the fire. And when the storm comes and the fire, not to wonder and not to wonder. To calmly say: "It's here." S to vaccinate and defend.
If you are defending a good cause, what can you be afraid of? What can happen to you? Are they defamed, slandered, robbed, defamed? Are they accusing you, judging you falsely? All this does not change the fact that the cause you defended was good, and therefore what you did when you tried to defend the good cause was also good. In such cases, do not care about anyone or anything, only the truth of the case, which you must protect. After all, they are helpless against the truth. They can crush you, but they can't convince you, they can accuse you, but they can't lie to you, they can take your life, but they can't take away your justice. You are not alone in life unless you defend a good cause. There is no payment or reward in such a lawsuit. But there is no bargain either. Therefore, never be afraid to say what you know with all your heart to be true.
When you face the powerful, always think about who these people got their power from? And what can they do against you? Can they take your property, your freedom or your life? And then? Even a tiny microbe, an infectious bacterium, which is fragile and transient, like the life of insects, can take your life. No, the most powerful lord has no real power over your soul, and is therefore powerless if you are just and he is unjust. He can only do something against you if he finds you guilty, and he is just. Therefore, do not think about what you will say to the great lord, how you will behave; just think that you are free as long as you are just, and the great lord is powerless against your justice.
All reading that teaches attitude and behavior in the face of death has a humiliating and discouraging aftertaste. All these "ars beatae moriendi" *, the ancient pagan and the Christian sages of the Middle Ages, the Stoics, the confessors, the humanists, the natural scientists of the modern age, try to convince you that death is not to be feared at all. they recommend dignity, others wise meekness and consent, still others indifference, some infatuation, longing, as if death were some supreme good, the entrance ticket to the afterlife, which we cannot hurry enough to redeem. This is how Seneca speaks when he teaches indifference, because he lays before us , how insignificant, perishable and unworthy of attention everything that we leave behind in life, like the Christian Boetius, like Huxley, the naturalist, when he sees life and death as two versions of a kind of chemical process. Every wise man strives to acquire some human point of view against the horror of death.
This industry is human, touching. That's why it's hopeless. Consider that the wise also die. And they uselessly say: "death is only a change" - they cannot calm our hearts and their hearts with this wisdom. hideous and great certainty, life, for the unknown and ominously incomprehensible uncertainty which is death, cessation, nothingness. Fear only, be calm. Do not fret, but fear. Otherwise, if it eases your soul, you may fret. Don't want "dignified ", so to die a liar. Die as you lived: humanly, so somewhat heroically and cowardly.
To live more, much more, with grass, plants, and fruit. Less, much less with fatty and black meat! Eat lots of fish and rye bread every day. Never drink any alcoholic beverages during the day, and if you do drink, only in the evening, only after meals, only pure wine, never at any other time and nothing else. If you drank wine one day, you must not touch the wine glass for the next twenty-four hours. To hear the roar of your blood when it wants to mingle with the beat of another body's blood with sincere desire. To turn away from all occasional temptations. To know when you, your body, your taste, your temperament really want something, and when you are hungry or thirsty out of gluttony, vanity, boredom, or sensually curious.
To live according to the real needs of your body and the measure of your character.
There are the indifferent, the friends, the opponents, who fight against you at the behest of some idea or belief or interest. This is the order of human life, that's the only way life has a beautiful tension: between friends and enemies, in the great crowd of the indifferent.
And then there is the enemy. He is not an opponent, more than that. It's as if fate has chosen the two of you for a duel that has no reason or meaning. You know about him, just as he knows about you, even though you have not crossed paths with him in any area of life or career. He hates you, he wants your bread and your life: you have never sinned against him. You spend a lifetime avoiding and looking for each other.
What can you do about it? Above all, try to understand. he is the counterbalance in your life. Otherwise, the struggle of your life would be futile. You need it. You have to beat yourself to beat him. You must know the truth to be right with him. You have to be better because he believes and promotes you as evil. God appointed him socially on earth. You have a joint venture, like troublemakers. Don't knock it off prematurely; don't knock him down at all. he teaches me to live, to fight, to defend myself. Know that you need it.
Thanks to the women.
Thanks to you who gave birth. And to you who were my wife. And to you, the third, tenth, thousandth, who gave me a smile, tenderness, a warm look, on the street, when I was leaving, you comforted me when I was lonely, you rocked me when I was afraid of death. Thanks to you for being blonde. And you because you were white. And to you, because your hands were beautiful. And you, because you were stupid and good. And you, because you were smart and cheerful. And to you for being patient and generous. And to you, because you covered my face with your hair when I failed and wanted to hide from the world, and to you, because your body warmed my body when I was cold in the loneliness of life. And to you, because you bore me a child. And to you, because you will catch my eyes with soft fingers. And to you, because you gave me bread and wine when I was hungry and thirsty. And to you, because your body radiated pleasure. And thanks to you because you were good like animals. And you, because your body smelled like the earth at the beginning of life. Thank you women, thank you.
Can we educate someone to be patriotic? It's as if I were to say: "I will force you to love yourself with a whip and a barbed whip." Home is not only land and mountains, dead heroes, mother tongue, the bones of our ancestors in cemeteries, bread and landscape, no. Home is you, with hair and skin, physical and in your spiritual quality: he gives birth, he buries you, you live and express him, in all the miserable, great, fiery and boring moments that make up your life. And your life is also a moment of the life of the homeland.
I cannot teach you to love your country: he who denies himself is mad. Your country is a magnified and timeless personality on historical scale. Home is destiny, personally too. It doesn't matter whether you "love" it or not. You are one. But I see and experience that you - so, solemnly, in writing and on the podium - rather testify and profess your love for the state. You cannot expect anything from your country. Home doesn't give you a merit order, a job, or greasy bread. Home is all there is. But the state gives you a fine stall, little trinkets on your lounge jacket, a prime butt, if you serve it skillfully, if you walk around it with an incense stick, if you confess it to the world in a manly way, with a swollen breast , that you love the state, even if it is broken. Usually people are not broken for this reason. That is why all love of the state is suspect. He who loves the state loves an interest. He who loves his country loves a destiny. Think about this, when you are screaming on the podium and your chest is beating.
The man who wants to stand his ground in the cruel battle of life in a manner befitting his rank does the right thing if he educates himself not only to impartiality and unconditional justice, but also to fearless pride, contempt for all kinds of human gain and danger, and a superior view of all kinds of human situations. By superiority I do not mean cold indifference, but the coolness of a sensible and characterful person in the face of all kinds of attacks in life. Human vileness, misery, the tangle of accidents and tragedies, the contingencies that lurk around us at every moment to overthrow what we have built in ourselves or in the world - with the tools of our work - disturb the peace of our souls, infect the relative satisfaction of our lives, rob us of what we rightly have we obtained: all this cannot be viewed from above, quite indifferently, coldly and superiorly.
We have no right to remain cold and superior only when we see innocent people being insulted and tortured. At such times, don't try, man, to look at human misery immovably and coldly from the vantage point of some attitude, philosophy or attitude. In your own affairs, remain dignified, cold, callous and haughty. When it comes to the misery of others, feel, be passionate, and act - don't shy away from being a burden to the powerful, beg, bribe, if necessary, do everything to help. In other people's affairs, you cannot be impartial and coldly wise, neither proud nor superior. The pain and humiliation of the innocent oblige you to leave the cliffs of your calm. Then, only then, you have no right to remain lonely and proud. Remember this well!
Only conscience can be your judge, executioner or patron, no one else! If you write, you are only accountable to your conscience, to no one else. It doesn't matter what they expect from you, it doesn't matter how they punish you if you don't give them what they expect from you or what they want to hear! Prison and shame, pillory and torture, false accusation and tongue-in-cheek humiliation, poverty and misery, all these do not really affect him. Only your conscience can punish you, only this secret voice can say: "You have sinned." Or: "It's okay." The rest is fog, smoke, nothingness.
Every time I was chased and attacked - and during a career as a writer these chases are inevitably repeated, sometimes with life-threatening twists - I experienced that no external help could protect the attacked writer. Not the power, not the court, not the help of colleagues, not even the voluntary encouragement of benevolent people and the wisdom of the experienced. The writer is protected individually only by his works. Not even the quality of his works, which is always uneven, but the intention that shines through the work of a writer's life. This is the mysterious ray and power that gives the writer some kind of - relative - invulnerability. The writer can only fail if they can prove that the intention of his work is not sincere. Then the writer and his work commit harakiri. Everything else doesn't matter much: neither the prosecution nor the defense.
Reading with power. Sometimes reading with more power than the writing you are reading was made with power. To read with reverence, passion, attention and relentlessness. The writer may babble; but you read narrowly. Listening to each word, one after the other, forwards and backwards in the book, seeing the clues that lead into the thicket, listening to the secret signals that the author of the book may have failed to notice when he progressed through the vastness of his work. Never read with a foreskin, casually, like someone who has been invited to a divine feast, and only pokes at the food with the tip of the fork. To read elegantly, generously. To read as if you were reading the last book in the house of mourning, which was still injected into your cell by the dustman. To read for life and death, because it is the greatest human gift. Consider that only humans read.
I have experienced that there is order at the bottom of human life. And because human life is the most complicated manifestation of Creation, it is likely that there is order elsewhere, in the world of more primitive and simpler existence, in the nature of rocks, raccoons, reptiles and planetary stars. There is order in everything, things reach us, even if we do not even move a finger, and there is also order in the fact that we occasionally move our finger or our soul in order for things to reach us, for us to reach certain situations, people, thoughts, to which a person according to us, we are inextricably linked. Everything is in order, I believe in this.
But I also believe that there is an intention behind this order, which I do not know. Call it whatever you want. I call it Providence. This intention cares about me, personally, punishes, guides, arranges my affairs, pushes me into the depths, checks every moment, builds the world around me and builds me in the world, uses it. Anyone who does not perceive this over time is blind and deaf. Behind everything is Providence: I believe in that too.
To judge with fairness in your own case as well as you train yourself to be fair in the case of others. You have no right to be impatient, unworthy, or overly demanding of yourself. If you want the world to recognize your human status, you must also recognize your own status. And behave accordingly, patiently and generously. Do not demand of yourself more, nor anything, nor worse than what you deem fair to others. You cannot necessarily make demands on yourself. Try to be more modest, know that your powers are woefully limited. In work, in ambition, in human effort, you dedicate yourself, not only to others. It is not enough to feel sorry for people; feel sorry for yourself too. You are also human: and it is so easy to forget this in the worldly competition. It is not only others who forget him; most of the time yourself.
All old philosophers had a burning question: "What is in man's power?" And they all answered in unison: "Only his soul."
This is the oldest, yes, the only truth that human reason has known and accepted as unconditionally true. Time, experience, perception and thinking have not changed this truth. We have only our souls in our power, nothing else. But this power is unlimited. No one can harm us, no one can take away from us the power exercised over our souls, there is no tyrant, no social system, no natural law that could prevent us from being free in our souls. This freedom is unconditional. And compared to this freedom, all other freedoms that society, power and money can give us are fragmentary and relative.
In the Middle Ages, there was a superstition that doctors brought diseases to certain regions as the material of their craft. Montesquieu confronted this misconception centuries later. Doctors do not bring disease, diseases bring doctors. And indeed, we see that different doctors are suitable for every climate. The remedy, which has enthusiastic and intelligent adherents in Paris, does not cure in Constantinople. The medicine that works for sure in Oslo does not work for sure in Marseille or Budapest. The doctor who brought thousands of patients back to life in London is powerless in Baghdad if fate throws him there. Man gets sick and heals not only according to his nature and habits, but also according to the sky. What is a laxative in Helsingfors, a laxative in Khartoum, and the vasospasm that Pyramidon is sure to relieve in Budapest, remains an vasospasm in China, no matter how many Pyramidones the mandarin takes. Quinine is swallowed half a gram in Pest, with a coffee spoon in Sumatra. A person is sick or healthy under many different conditions. Think about that when you scold the doctor.
Acquittal whenever possible in a human trial. Not unless you find the accused guilty of a slowly and coldly planned crime of treason.
It is easier to forgive a murderer than a traitor. Most of the time, the murderer acts on impulse, and pays for it with his entire fate. The killer and the victim are most often bound to each other, according to some deep and incomprehensible law. Most of the time, the killer goes to jail. But your treacherous hand squeezes him, he looks into your treacherous eyes, he asks about your plans, he sighs with you, he moans, he vows. Never forgive a traitor. Show no mercy to the traitor. For those who have betrayed someone once - man or woman, it doesn't matter - there is no more exam, excuse, or absolution for them. Banish it from your life. Look at his fate without pity. In community and private life, he is the last man, there is no excuse for him.
You should not travel alone. The lone traveler performs forced labor. You may only travel in confidential and discreet company. The company of a sensitive and receptive woman and an attentive and patient friend will multiply the experiences of the trip, enhance the colorfulness of the sights, and help you understand everything that the road and the world show. Traveling alone is an awkward, tense feeling. It's as if a person is being put at the mercy of a strange prison, which is as big as the world.
A person can only see and perceive the world in company. The company gives human meaning to the gloomy magic of the road, to change. During my wandering years, I traveled a lot alone, with little luggage, always feverish, restless, chasing something. I missed a smart companion who stands by me in the dangerous and disturbing experience of the world, whom I warn, and who warns, who shares the grim loneliness of the innkeepers, the evil nervousness of the railways. In the company of the right person, you can also travel around the Earth, and it will seem like it was all a moment. You wander around the world alone, by express train and by plane.
What can scare you if your soul is calm? If you overcome vanity, lust and greed? What kind of powers can torture you if you don't torture yourself? What is prison if your soul is free? What is death, if you have gotten to know the world and your soul, and you do not long for unnecessary and embarrassing details? Indeed, you were like the child who is unhappy because he did not get this or that. Always think this: “I have no power, no wealth, perhaps no health. But how powerful I am, how rich, how superior, because I adjust my desires to the truth and reality of things, and my soul is free!" No one can take that from you, no one can give you more.
The extent of human vileness is so unlimited, its heat is so burning, its ingenuity is so original and varied, its expressions are so surprising that sometimes we get overwhelmed and feel that this is the greatest human strength. But later on, we experience that whenever human meanness strikes, human help immediately appears. Most of the time, the intention to help is more helpless than meanness, more courageous, more hesitant. It is more difficult to organize the power of help. But he shows up, without asking or calling, sometimes very shamelessly, and you have to see at the same time that, in contrast to meanness, human intention also organizes help. Sometimes late. Sometimes imperfectly. But in the end triumphantly. This is what I experienced.
Are you tired of living? Yes, one day you feel that you took on too much of a task when you were born as a human being on this earth. There was too much resistance, the unpredictable, the hostile, the mean, the hopeless, there were too many tasks, too much suffering, too much disappointment. But don't you think, don't you feel that this very hopelessness, this "too much", this "much" has given rank and meaning to your life? Don't you feel that it was your duty, your personal business? Don't you feel that nature, which so mindlessly exaggerates and wastes, has honored you by giving you a human-made and human-sized task on earth? What can you be but tired? This was your job: to live and get tired.
Travel with little luggage. Travel, but know at every moment that there is no real place for the traveler to stay. Don't spend a lot of time organizing your belongings, don't carry unnecessary items on your travels. Packaging ages you.
It's the little side tasks of life that age me the most. The fluff, the unnecessary complications of everyday rituals, the annoyance felt over torn buttons, the worry of letters not sent on time, packing on the go. Not only does one age dramatically, with swaying white curls and calcified veins, no. People grow old prematurely even if the laundry doesn't fit in your laundry a week later, even though a week ago, it still fit splendidly when it was ironed. Travel easy like birds. This way you can go further and stay young.
One day everything must be accounted for. But about everything. This is inevitable. And no matter how you pay it: what you did wrong, what you owe, what you were a coward for, what you are guilty of, you will give an account for all of this one day. Therefore strengthen your soul no matter what: for you are not without sin. And if they take me to the stake, know: I am innocent, but I am also guilty. And account voluntarily, earlier than they demand: you act wisely in this way, and people will respect you more if you do this. Don't delay the settlement. What can you hope for? You are human, therefore you are guilty.
I have experienced that finely grated raw carrots sprinkled with lemon juice are not only a refreshing dish, but also calm the nerves, especially the eye nerves. I have heard - I have not experienced this personally - that one of the components of raw carrots, carotene, definitely strengthens the optic nerves, and sometimes also prevents blinding processes, and removes incipient cataracts. This is possible, but not certain. What is certain is that raw, grated carrots watered with lemon juice, which can be eaten during a meal or instead of a salad, strengthens the body, refreshes, and has something useful and healing in it. It's also certain that it doesn't hurt. I can also recommend unpeeled apples - if it's the season, one every day - and plenty of lemon and orange juice. I noticed that in years when I consumed plenty of raw carrots, lemon and orange juice at the end of winter, every day, I did not get colds or infectious diseases.