2
" I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. "
― Erich Maria Remarque , All Quiet on the Western Front
3
" Spare parts lay scattered, every turn wrought with twisted dread, all over the ground, the rooftops, and they were still. Some moving, twitching, enough to almost see. Half cracked and shattered, but still visible and eerie, smiles spread wide and thin, teeth decayed and not, paralleled by hollowed, some missing or in other places, eyes of shades green and blue and some brown with red, but no white, just color portrayed, even if it may be dampened in every way. The beauty in the frivolity, the polished shining gears and cracked glass illuminated so brightly, create a portrait of terror and wonder, significance of a different sort, that only human eyes can see and human minds can feel, but all this is something only dreams, the ethereal concepts that fuse and mince chaos and order into a more paradoxical state, can create and fathom and fashion and make. And yet, doubts upon anxious contradictions, my fingers can feel the brokenness of what can be witnessed, an abyss within a void where deeper within the still lies a glow, a half pulse of a flutter, a vein of mimicry of the reverse of all I see, with concave eyes lost in the magnitude of image whole. Massive and monumental, my feet dragged behind me, cuts in the dirt and spiraling tracks. And then I awoke, half my world disappeared. So much empty within the whole, holes of sizes big and small and all between, the loss of, what it was to be called, my dream. And then my life ended, the holes and tears and cracks complete, empty eyes can still see so clearly, the nothingness that everything has become, shadow and matte a combination of dark on black, in the nothingness that all has become, it is all complete in a way opposite of what I know, a world different in every way and stretch I see, vision upon view of different and strange, only when empty eyes, longing for purpose dreading its meaning, gaze upon their own reflection will the last piece fall into place, a round puzzle of pieces triangular and square, the completeness in the nothingness can be seen, mind flooded with wonder, envisioning the antonym of a dream, and what, in this new beginning, this all could mean. With a blink it all changes, incomplete images appear, holes are wide and seen because you are back now, between death and dream, interwoven as an integral part of this necessary in between seam, and when you touch, worry creases the brow, their faces, half real and the other untouchable, your hand passes through their skin, penetration of the most intimate sort, holding their hearts as if for sport. The warmth, the beating, the crimson piercing blood, so beautiful, the engine that we run, pumping and pumping only to cause the most dreaded flood. Now I drown, and I see you drown too. Together, we are, for split seconds few, we are torn apart and disappear in this vast blood red hue. "
10
" They pray.To whom?To God.To pray to God, - what is the meaning of these words?Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because, if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, since it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it not the absolute, of which we are only the relative?At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not an infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarming plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent, each of them has a will principle, and there is an " I" in the upper infinity as there is an " I" in the lower infinity. The " I" below is the soul; the " I" on high is God.To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, with the infinity on high, is called praying. Let us take nothing from the human mind; to suppress is bad. We must reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, prayer, - these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them. Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul? Into the shadow; that is to say, to the light. "
16
" I thought of what pride would look like, a jowly old guy in a smoking jacket. Vanity was a tall, beautiful woman with a face like a mask. Envy was a treasure-hoarding dragon, dainty and diabolical. As I sketched in the dragon's face, I gave her eyebrows like mine, my turtle necklace around its scaly neck.
Xanda drew them as cliffs and valleys, irrevocably linked pride as a mountain, envy as a valley, hating its lowness and longing to reach, overtake, conquer. She drew vanity as a volcano with an abyss at its core. "
― Holly Cupala , Tell Me a Secret
19
" Ah! This is retribution for Promethean fire! Besides being patient, you must also love this sadness and respect your doubts and questions. They are an abundant excess, a luxury of life, and they appear more at the summits of happiness, when you have no crude desires. They are not born in the midst of mundanity. They have no place where there is grief and want. The masses go along without knowing the fog of doubts or the anguish of questions. But for anyone who has encountered them at the right time they are dear visitors, not a hammer.'
'But there's no coping with them. They bring anguish and indifference to nearly everything.' she added indecisively.
'But for how long? Afterward they refresh life,' he said. 'They lead to an abyss from which nothing can be gained, and they force you to look again at life, with even greater love. They summon up your tested powers to struggle with it, as if expressly to let them sleep afterward.'
'This fog and these specters torment me!' she complained. 'Everything is bright and all of a sudden a sinister shadow is cast over life! Are there no means against this?'
'What do you mean? Your buttress is in life! Without it, life is sickening, even without any questions!'
p. 508 "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
