Nothing that grieves us can be called little. By the eternal law of proportions a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of his crown are events of the same size.
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain
“Man’s fate knows no harsher misfortune than when those who have power on earth are not also the first men.”
—F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Part Four, “Conversation with the Kings,” §1 (excerpt).
—F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Part Four, “Conversation with the Kings,” §1 (excerpt).
This “withdrawal” from everything human and breaking off all connections is, with regard to creative work, the most magnificent human experience I know — with regard to concrete situations, it is the most repugnant thing one can encounter.
One’s heart is ripped from one’s body.
And the hardest thing is — such isolation cannot be defended by appeal to what it achieves, because there are no measures for that and because one cannot just make allowance for abandoning human relationships… With the burden of this necessary isolation, I always hope for complete isolation form the outside — for a merely apparent return to other people — and for the strength to keep an ultimate and constant distance.
For only then can all sacrifice be spared them, along with the necessary rejection.
But this tormented desire is not just unattainable, it is even forgotten — so much so that the most vital human relationships become a spring again and provide the forces that drive one into isolation once more…. Such a life then becomes wholly a matter of exigencies that have no justification.
Coming to terms with this in a positive way — not taking a position exclusively as a kind of escape — is what it means to be a philosopher.
One’s heart is ripped from one’s body.
And the hardest thing is — such isolation cannot be defended by appeal to what it achieves, because there are no measures for that and because one cannot just make allowance for abandoning human relationships… With the burden of this necessary isolation, I always hope for complete isolation form the outside — for a merely apparent return to other people — and for the strength to keep an ultimate and constant distance.
For only then can all sacrifice be spared them, along with the necessary rejection.
But this tormented desire is not just unattainable, it is even forgotten — so much so that the most vital human relationships become a spring again and provide the forces that drive one into isolation once more…. Such a life then becomes wholly a matter of exigencies that have no justification.
Coming to terms with this in a positive way — not taking a position exclusively as a kind of escape — is what it means to be a philosopher.
Time does not heal all wounds, it doesn't even smooth over the edges or dull the ache. What is lost remains lost, what is a void remains empty.