Human matter has not changed for five thousand years, ten thousand years. Only the costumes, the systems and conditions of coexistence have changed. What a person is - the soul and the character - has not changed. In the city of Ur, in Babylon, the same people lived as in Budapest today: and in their souls they perceived the world in the same way and responded to the world in exactly the same way. They were just - without instruments - closer to the secrets of the world, to time, to the stars, to the sign language of nature. Their hearing was finer, their vision - even without binoculars - sharper, more perceptive, more foreboding, more gripping. Human matter has not changed, but man, thanks to a few flamers and instruments, is blinder and more deaf in civilization than he was at the beginning of human time. It's quieter and prettier. More informed and at the same time more ignorant. He thinks he controls the universe at the push of a button. This gigantic structure, civilization, banished man from the great, secret, intimate community of the world.
Wherever you flee, to work, role or behavior, people do not let you go, they reach for you, they demand that you participate in their movements, that you share their worries, plans and hopes, they pull on the wings of your coat, and they attack and deny you if you withdraw from common tasks. You have to calm down - and if you're an artist, a thinker, a contemplative person, that's not easy! – that you have to keep it with people. You have to cry and laugh with them, and you can only be happy and satisfied if they allow you.
But people - you say - are only individually responsible, feeling and participating people; in a crowd they are like a herd; the cheapest slogans fire them, the meanest desires stretch the chest of the crowd. How can I participate in their affairs if I do not want them to confess to the detriment of my soul?
I can only answer: preserve the freedom of your soul by remaining just. When the crowd wants something from you that your conscience refuses, refuse their wish. It doesn't matter what the price and consequences of this behavior are. The limit of your solidarity is justice. You also have law and power, not just them. This law and power is the truth: they can break your head, but they cannot take this power away from you.
There are incurably damaged people who are so deeply infected by greed, vanity and envy that there is no way to approach and reconcile their sick souls. Aim for these, but avoid them. There is no generous act, selfless behavior, brave and noble approach that can help these people. In particular, envy torments these people. They throw up bile, scream in their sleep, toss and turn on their bums like scumbags, and spit foam when they see that someone has earned or achieved something in life through work or the benevolence of fate. These are patients, infectious patients. Avoid their company, don't believe that arguments and proof can ever convince them. It's as if you want to prove to the leper that the healthy are sinless and innocent! He doesn't believe it. If you reveal to them the real cause of their illness, they will hate you. If you try to affect their feelings, they will blow the whistle. They live as deeply in their emotions as in the fate of the exile: they know no other solution but revenge. Don't bargain with them, avoid them and endure their existence on earth as a stroke of fate.
Make sure that you are never in a hurry and obey the strict consistency of facts and situations in your work, social life, yes, even in everyday actions. Don't want to do two things with both hands at the same moment. When writing a letter, don't listen to the phone. When you smoke, don't want to cure your bronchitis at the same time. Don't listen to music when you read. And above all: pay attention to the deep order of tasks and situations. There is a kind of dexterity at the bottom of human tasks; it doesn't hurt to learn that. If you grab something, hold it with both hands and firmly, if you let go of something, let it go consciously and with all consequences, if you speak, let your words stand in time like a stone, if you are happy about something, be happy without reservation. There is also some craft part of life; and ordinary days also have a mastery. And there is an account for Monday as well. Watch your movements. The cause of most human misfortunes is not Greek bad luck, but clumsiness, laziness, and sloppiness. Learn this craft, this life, remain the master of life with movement and action.
There is no human relationship that is more moving and deeper than friendship. Lovers, yes, even in the relationship between parents and children, there is so much selfishness and vanity! Only the friend is not selfish; otherwise not a friend. Only the friend is not vain, because he wants everything good and beautiful for his friend, not for himself. A lover always wants something; the friend wants nothing for himself. The child always wants to receive from his parents, he wants to surpass his father; the friend does not want to receive or surpass. There is no more secret and noble gift in life than narrow-minded, understanding, patient and self-sacrificing friendship. And there is nothing rarer.
Montaigne, when he wondered about the feeling he had for La Boétie, said: "We were friends... Because he was her and because I was me." This is more than accurate. And Seneca writes this to Lucilius: , loves, but those who love are not always friends." This statement is more than accurate: it is the truth. All love is suspect because selfishness and stinginess lurk in its ashes. Only the affection of a friend is selfless, there is no interest in it, nor the play of the senses. Friendship is a service, a strong and serious service, the greatest human test and role.
Never see the duel between man and woman as anything other than a hopeless struggle fueled by the cruelest selfishness and unbridled vanity. The moments of bribery, the gentler life situations, the occasional softening should never make you forget when you are facing a woman that you are a warrior, whose skin and life the opponent wants. Fight chivalrously, but fight. If you sometimes meet with generosity, pay with generosity; if you receive tenderness, give back, without emotion, with tenderness what you have received; when you encounter passion, respond with unconditional passion. But never, for a single moment, forget that naked selfishness and vanity smolder at the bottom of every emotional encounter. He lies on the embers, who lies in a woman's bed. You can burn your skin there; he must save his human rank and honor. Listen and fight. Opponents stand around, with feathers in their hair and paint on their faces, like wild warriors.
There is a type of person who only laughs with his mouth. They are like the chilled ones; like those who are deaf or their sense of smell does not work. You joke in their presence, you express your opinion in some distorted or funny situation of life, and you have to notice with astonishment that he does not understand and does not hear exactly what is amusing in the small, occasional story: he laughs, but only with his mouth. His heart and mind did not see the deep-seated ridiculousness of the situation. He laughs politely, grinning his teeth. But his heart never laughs. These grim grins can be scary. Don't joke with them. When you point to life, their response is to show their fangs.
In the terrible race of life, most people only rest when they are sick. Illness, in the words of the French poet, is not only the journey of the poor, but also the holiday of the poor, its winter Riviera, Tatras and Egypt. To feverish spirits, the disease sends a real fever to calm them down a little. The ambitious and unsatisfied runaway who - like Kleist, the poet - "changes cities like a fever patient changes cities", only realizes his true desires and hopeless passions in his sick bed.
Illness is also rest, that's a cliché. Therefore, avoid the command of nature, forced sick leave, and incorporate small, artificial illnesses into the rhythm of your life in order to rest. Keep the bed healthy sometimes for a day. You have a voracious appetite, you would also like to chew on a nail: voluntarily fast for a day or two. Your heart won't be pounding because of nicotine yet: reward it by giving up cigarettes for three days without a compelling need. The organization is so grateful for the smallest attention! And these small, artificial states of illness and healing, voluntary diets, withdrawals and rests, evoked without the command of the disease, are equivalent to a trip to the East or an appendectomy. Try it. You will see miracles.
To wait, with the patience of an angel and a saint, until the things - people, ideas, situations - that belong to you come to you. Not to rush a single step towards them, with a single movement, so not to hasten their approach. Because certain people, ideas, situations that belong to your life, your character, your worldly and spiritual destiny, are constantly on your way. Books. Men. Women. Friendships. Knowledge, truths. It's all heading towards you, with a slow trickle, and you must meet one day. But don't hurry, don't hurry their way and their approach. If you rush towards them, you can avoid what is important and personally yours. Wait, with great strength, attentively, with your whole destiny and life.
If someone does not come to the meeting at the agreed time - be it a woman or a man, a friend or a stranger - you can wait fifteen minutes. Then go away. And if you can't save yourself with a legitimate excuse, don't seek the company of such a person anymore. Do not harbor anger or resentment in your heart, because that is unworthy of a person. But don't give the other person any more opportunities to keep you waiting. Because people insult each other out of cowardice and cowardice. Waiting is such an insult.
Be accurate to the second in everything you do. You can't be so tired, so sad, so listless as to violate the law of polite punctuality. Punctuality is not only the courtesy of kings, but the duty of every responsible person who knows his rank. A first-rate person is one who is punctual without interest. A lazy, lazy, frivolous person is always late. After all, such a person misses the great meeting of life: getting to know oneself.
Always, everywhere, in every way and at every opportunity to fight against fanaticism. Against the foaming-mouthed, squeamish temper that breaks out of its human hiding place and wants to dictate and shape the world. Fight against fanaticism with patience, explanation, reason, and consistent pedagogy. And with sympathy too. Pity the fanatic. He lunges at you, but in the frenzy of the fit he bites his tongue and crushes himself.
If some rule of life has been established in our life, we must stick to it at all costs; because the life of an adult is made up of rules and ways of life, like a building made of solidly laid bricks, and it is not advisable to shake this structure by moving one or another brick out of place. Over the age of forty, our lives are filled with rules that others may regard as frivolous: we know that their real meaning is to defend against anarchy. Getting up, going to bed, having fun, working hours, relationships with people, all these are regulated by strict laws over time.
And if we sin against these laws, our conscience is filled with guilt. It is not true that your lifestyle can be "spontaneous". You yourself can sometimes be spontaneous, your decisions, passions and ideas can be voluntary: but your lifestyle, which is independent of all this, cannot be voluntary and idea-like. If people don't like the way you live, differently than they want or imagine, or differently than you once promised them, due to some compulsion or misunderstanding: don't hurt them. You don't live for people. But if you sin against your own laws, you will regret this disloyalty bitterly. Even in your sins and mistakes follow the system that follows from the laws of your life. In the eyes of the world, you can fail as many times as you like. We must not be weak in front of ourselves, because this is the real failure.
The greatest heroism is to stick to your work, no matter what the world says about it. And even more real heroism is to destroy your work if you feel that you could not do perfectly what you contracted yourself to do. Live between the two intentions, don't talk about it, live completely for your task and remain ruthless towards your work. It is not only creation that requires strength; also for judging your work. Stay stricter with your work than the world can ever be.
If the holiday comes in your life, then celebrate to the fullest. Wear black clothes. Brush your hair with a wet brush. Cleanse yourself inside and out. Forget everything that is the ceremony and task of ordinary days. The holiday is not only written in red letters on the calendar. Look at the ancients, how devoutly, how absolutely, how circumstantially, with how much wild joy they celebrated! The holiday is the difference. The holiday is a deep and magical disorder. Let the holiday be festive. Let there be dancing, flowers, young women, selected foods, blood-invigorating and oblivion drinks. And above all, there should be something from the old order, the seventh day, the interruption, the complete switch off, there should be reverence and unconditionality. The holiday is the rank and higher meaning of life. Get ready for it, body and soul.
And not only the calendar has a red-letter day. Life also brings other invisible holidays. In this case, forget everything, pay attention to the holiday.
Reason is not enough to understand ourselves or the phenomena of the world: to understand and perceive the essential, the infallible, something else is needed, more than reason. It also requires grace and humility, some particularly fortunate functioning of our body and instincts, a kind of advantageous placement of the object of our investigation, and perhaps the appropriate evolution of the constellations is also necessary in order to understand something on this earth. Think about this when you are proud because you think you understand this or that.
Of course, there is no happiness, in the sense that it can be distilled, packaged, and labeled, as most people imagine. It's as if you just have to go to a pharmacy, where they give you a medicine for 360, and then nothing hurts anymore. It's as if a man lives somewhere for a woman, or a woman for a man, and once they meet, there is no more misunderstanding, no selfishness, no anger, only eternal serenity, constant contentment, cheerfulness and health. As if happiness is something other than a desire for the unattainable!
Most people spend a lifetime preparing methodically, sweatily, diligently, and relentlessly for happiness. They make plans to be happy, they travel and work for this purpose, they gather the supplies of happiness with the diligence of an ant and the predatory greed of a tiger. And when life is over, they learn that it is not enough to acquire all the requisites of happiness. You have to be happy, too. And they forgot about that.
At the bottom of things is sex. Maybe in the life of the crystals too. But all genders are sad.
To look upon the matter of bodies as a judgment. Only tenderness is human. Passion is inhuman and hopeless.
But the judgment that condemned all living beings to passion is merciless. The living world is built between desire and satisfaction, with such inhuman will as the pharaohs built the pyramids with naked masses.
What do you hope for, poor naked slave, when lust's barbed whip snaps at your back?
Happiness? Satisfaction?
You build the building of the world, with the binder of your blood and semen, you perform forced labor. Only tact and tenderness can momentarily forget the sad compulsion of the cruel slavery of sexuality.
But exactly as in the songs sung by the chanson singers in the café. And the lesson of the songs is always that broken hearts can no longer be glued together. That's the lesson in life too. If a person once approached someone with trust and unconditional feelings, and his feelings were hurt, his heart was "broken", he can never again feel true trust, unconditional devotion towards another person. There is no more sensitive material on earth than human material. He is incapable of forget an insult to his soul or feelings. And no matter what friendship or love encounter life brings him, he remains suspicious, every relationship becomes a distorted and evil game opportunity for him, he always wants revenge. Such is the man. Be careful when you associate with such offended hearts face to face: you can't reconcile them, and you don't have the patience, wisdom, generosity, passion that can calm such disappointed hearts.
For example, it is true that when I was a grown man, I got a great desire for swimming and tennis. I especially fell in love with tennis when I turned forty; it is the only humanistic sport; man goes against man, with all his strength, but there is forever a distance between the combatants, they do not touch each other. Just as Luther never saw Erasmus, with whom he dueled for a lifetime. And swimming, how good it was, especially in the sea! To swim for a long time, in the deaf, solid water, as if one were returning home to the ancient elements of existence! But I noticed that these physical exercises take me away from my work. They are pleasant to my body, but not good for my soul. And what is not good for my work and my soul is ultimately not good for my body either. That is why I reduced these amusements; and in all this there was also much vanity; to stay young and healthy!... But it's not my job to be young and healthy, yes, it's not even my job to stay disease-free. A person assigned to intellectual work has only one thing to do: intellectual work. Walking is perhaps the only form of exercise we can afford; like prisoners who spend an hour a day circling the prison yard. Work is the greatest slavery.
Do you feel smug and proud that you have read and understood a few books, increased your knowledge, learned something about nature or the wonders of the human spirit? Do you feel that you are "educated", different from the ignorant? Just think of the infinite mass of knowledge contained in the sum total of books, and what else would one need to know and read in order to fully understand a single book? Think of the iron stands running around the library of the British Museum, what you would have to live long enough to get to know something of the material of thought contained in the books piled up there! But just stay in your book room and confess how many different books you have not read among those that are lined up on your bookshelves, and even among the ones you have read, how many are there one that you fully understood and followed with all attention. No, "education" when it looks wolf-eyed at the universe of the human spirit, is only a barren and vain attitude. Rather, think that understanding, grasping, and feeling a single piece of knowledge requires the fullness of life's efforts. And also think about how much was written and thought before you, what oceans of thoughts rest in the past, and with what kind of fall the abundance of human thoughts flows from the sum of phenomena and symptoms in every new age. Think about that and you'll be ashamed. Your brain's education is limited and childish. But the education of your character and heart can be complete and worthy of a man, even if your intellectual knowledge is limited.
There are two types of laziness: horizontal and vertical. There are people who are lazy only in the big horizons of their lives; in the plans; in that he postpones his determinations and decisions; he lazily builds his life's work, builds everything in time, in the great distance. Then there is the other, vertical laziness, when we remain lazy in front of the moment, when we do not think, say or do what could be done at that moment. We don't reach out for something that we could get without much effort, and maybe later we can only get it with great sacrifices, we don't go to the phone, we don't write that letter, or we don't jot down that thought, right then, in that moment. moment. This last kind of laziness is the most dangerous. Life depends on such missed, lazily neglected moments.
One day a voice speaks. You are busy with something, or you are busy with something: a task that you think is of primary importance and belongs only to you, only your business. You have already prepared for this task, you are doing your work with zeal. And all of a sudden the voice speaks and says: "Your job is different." And the possibility of a task that you never thought about before flashes by. And you know, this task will not be completely safe for you. , evokes a series of disputes and dangers. And yet, you have to leave everything now. Your practical interests are seriously threatened by the new task. And yet, you have to put everything aside, you have to take on this danger, this effort, this sacrifice, this new job, this suggested and incomprehensible new task.The command word of the voice cannot be misunderstood. He who listens well and obeys at such times may fail among the worldly dangers evoked by the task, but he will save his soul. A person who is deaf, comfortable, or a coward walks comfortably through life, but his soul remains wounded, dissatisfied and restless. Take your pick, my friend.
Smart people are always tired and exhausted. In their company I felt like I was in some bad faith exam. I had to watch forever, because they were also watching me, from under closed eyelashes, like a hunter watches his game, am I answering their smart comments correctly, am I smart enough for them, the smart ones, to talk to me? No, smart people are always tired. And I never learned anything important from them. Mostly they only explained why something is not good: life, the work of a person, spring or autumn? But they never said that life is good, that death is natural, that man is not completely hopeless; because they were smart.
Cleverness is not wisdom. Cleverness is a skill, nervous system and intellectual agility. Wisdom is truth, composure, forgiveness, objectivity, and consent. Smart people are never wise, they are too excited for that, they are constantly drunk with their cleverness, as it were; but the wise are always clever, and at the same time they are more than these, because they do not want to prove anything. Avoid the company of smart people, because they excite you and eventually hurt you. Seek the company of the wise. You can talk to the smart ones. You can listen with the wise.
The intellectual creative worker needs exactly the same training methods, training, health and practice regime as the wrestler, or the equestrian, or the strength artist. From a sloppy, vile, unclean lifestyle, one cannot travel for seconds to the highest level of human effort, creative intellectual work.
Lifestyle, simple and everyday behavior in life, nutrition, environment, daily schedule, all of this determines the quality of a poem or a study.
You can't talk to God from five to six in the afternoon if you've been living like a pig night and day. A greedy, greedy or mean lifestyle also throws waste into the sea of your work. It takes constant practice to think; and something else for the creation.
And because we are mortal - the greatest gift of human life is that we see this fact more simply and understand it more perfectly every day - we must organize our everyday life like someone who lives in readiness. Like Seneca, when Nero reigns in the Urbs *; like the ladies and gentlemen in the cellars of the Conciérgerie *; like all people who live in the revolution. Because life is a revolution. Sometimes especially so; for example, in the era we live in now, when the masses have seized the leadership.
That's why we have to live à jour *. To respond to the world every day, by letter, feeling or thought. The doubt that arises in our everyday life should be looked at immediately; to answer the question, if possible, with all our strength; to work on and complete the due stage of our task. Nature is also alive; every day, he processes, organizes, finishes and puts everything in place.
There is no era in the life of the more developed humanity living in society, whose superior poets and thinkers do not criticize the office and the official. Only the nomadic man and the horde did not know this complaint. The groups of people who are united in society cannot do without this necessary evil, the office: Cicero criticizes it just like Shakespeare or Montesquieu, and no era can do without it. Because in the beginning there is a space, the agora, where people from their nomadic lives come together to discuss common human tasks; the city, the polis, is built around the square; around the city, with pathological and natural sprouting, the state is built. This process repeats itself for thousands of years with a monotonous rhythm. The clerk is a consequence of society, the clerk is a condition for the functioning of the city. No one has yet invented another or better one.
And the office was always bad and always packed; think of this when you stand in line in front of a cash register to pay a tax after a polite and humble wait, or to save something that is otherwise yours by right and law. The purpose of the office is not to be "good". Its purpose is not human, but state. The best official and the most perfect office is the one who does not interfere with life too much. The one who does not act too much. If they compromise with each other, it is life and the office, they reach an agreement of about fifty percent and do not hurt each other too much: this is the most.
You are acting wisely if you eat one or two grated apples every morning, after waking up and before eating, when you are hungry. Apple is a mysterious fruit. It is no coincidence that it is one of the oldest symbols in humanity's consciousness. The apple tree was the "tree of knowledge," the apple was the biblical forbidden fruit. Well, this forbidden fruit has a personal connection with man. Perhaps it played a role when man was cast out of Paradise; we don't know for sure. But I noticed that a raw, grated apple is one of the essentials of everyday hygiene. It refreshes, soothes the stomach and regulates the intestines. Especially if you wash the apple carefully with clean hands before grating it, and then water it with lemon juice. Long life is not guaranteed by this gentle formula, but your stomach and intestines will gratefully accept this clean, healing everyday gift.And a person is not only human with his heart and mind, but also with his stomach and intestines.
Because there are many types of stupidity. There are intelligent people in whose souls the flickering light of reason has gone out because they were born and brought up in unfortunate life circumstances. There are people who are stupid because they cannot control their bodies, they are dumbed down by passion, the flame of their soul is suffocated by the pride of the senses. There are stupid people who are simply victims of their environment. These are to be pitied. But true stupidity is quite rare, and all the more dangerous and hopeless. Man is a rational being by nature. The true, the dark, the hopeless stupidity must be viewed with interest as if it were some ancient and terrifying natural phenomenon, like the two-headed raven, like a distorted, incomprehensible idea of nature, which - literally - has no meaning whatsoever. True stupidity is unsolvable. What is missing in the soul and body of such a person? The Holy Spirit or certain juices, glandular products? The iodine? The sex hormone? We don't know exactly. But what we need to know is that it is advisable to avoid real fools in every way, and to defend against them without being noticeable. Do not try to convince such people, because they are not benevolent. The kind poor fools are benevolent; a stupid person is malicious. Fools are God's poor children; fools are allies of hell. They are the doom, it must be endured.
Don't push away the sadness. He comes unwisely; maybe you grow old in such moments, maybe you understood something, you say goodbye to something in a quarter of an hour of sadness. And yet, sadness makes life beautiful. It is not necessary for you to wander through the earthly spaces with artificial world pain, with your head hanging down, meditating on the hopeless impermanence of life and all phenomena, searching for the phantoms of seeming joys. First, the joys that disappear may not have been real joys. Just remember... Then: in an unexpected moment, sadness covers the world in front of your eyes with a wonderful, silver-gray fog, and everything becomes nobler, including the objects and your memories. Sadness is a great power. You see everything from further away, as if you had reached the top while hiking. Things will be more foreboding, simpler and truer in this noble mist and pearly glow. You feel more human at the same time. It's like hearing music without a melody. The world is also sad. And how vile, how trivial, how boring and unbearable a completely satisfied world would be, how sad the world would be without sadness!
When illness comes around, with great strength and will, you can stay in control of the malaise for a while. At the beginning. When doom is still lurking around you. He poisons your strength like a fighter his opponent. If you are very attentive, you are very strong, you keep the right order in your soul and in your affairs - health is truth - maybe you will remain the stronger one in the beginning of the duel. Staying healthy means staying fair and just.