Consider the peculiarity of
a situation in which you make up for the lack of a purpose in life by finding
meaning only in the process of living out your days. It sometimes seems to me
that in these conditions of simply waiting for their sentence to end, men may
be happier than they are living in freedom – only they have not quite grasp the
fact.
All
our troubles come from being ever caught in a divided state: we want to do
something, but cannot – or vice versa. We constantly hover between life and
death; feelings and actions are only half-realized. With fear and bated breath
we wait: will something happen or not? Expectations or dreams fail to
materialize. But once you are over the dividing line, plunged into a situation
in which, however hopeless it may be, there is no turning back, no chance of
escaping or trimming your sails, then the wholeness of an existence that
neither threatens further loss nor holds out hope of gain envelops you in a
feeling of serene and trusting calm…
I like the slow tempo of our
existence here compared with the usual rhythm of life which people outside
willy-nilly adopt in order to be on time for the bus, the office or the cinema.
The mind, therefore works somehow more naturally in camp it, doesn’t have to
calculate all the time how to get ahead of somebody else. Apart from exceptional cases, one
practically ceases to hurry (where to?). And existence opens its blue eyes all
the wider…
Coming out of prison is like making a posthumous appearance
in the world. It is not like being born again, because one is old and weak, but
much water has flowed under the bridges and we find it odd to observe that time
has continued to pass by quite unconcerned and indifferent to our absence; and
the fact that reality has just gone on impassively turning the handle of its hurdy-gurdy,
regardless of who leaves or rejoins its merry cavalcade, is the chief cause of
irritation and gloom in those who come back. The sensation of a secondary,
posthumous existence arises from our lack of involvement I in life, from the
fact that will still go on viewing it as distant observers even though it is
now at close quarters again. Both mind and body are numbed. All you are aware
of is your peculiar relationship to the world; your sense of existing in it as
a specter. Hence your inability and unwillingness (itself somewhat half-hearted)
to fall into any kind of fuss and bother, such as buying sandwiches, or
drinking a bottle of beer – none of this is important or necessary, since all
that really means anything to you is your function as a spectral presence. Life
is not to blame for this – only one’s lack of interest in living it having once
been buried. Possibly for this reason, it frequently happens that those who
come back die fairly soon after their “return to life”. In theory they should
live happily ever after (while they were in limbo it was the dream of doing so
that gave them the strength to survive), but then the lose interest and no
longer want to live. They simply lack the will or the desire to re-enter their
former existence and wholly succumb to their view of themselves as ghosts…
There is a strange air of
desolation about all these lights and cars, these advertisements, restaurants,
shops, suits: something of the provinces or the suburbs. The center has
disappeared (where has the center got too?). One feels nothing but growing pity
for this provincial benightedness.
Poor children, poor dear children! Your amusements are not really much
fun. How poverty-stricken they are, all these theatres and palaces of
culture. And look at that old
woman fussing over her mink coat – in the old days, madam, such things were far
grander, I assure you, and yet they have vanished without a trace. All those
opulent furs and carriages have rotted away. And here you are with your car.
What a joke
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