L’angelo caduto diventa un diavolo maligno

“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being; “yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow-feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now, that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone, while my sufferings shall endure: when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of bringing forth. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No crime, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I call over the frightful catalogue of my deeds, I cannot believe that I am he whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendant visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am quite alone.

– Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

On ðone ærystan dæg þæs [monðes] bið ealra haligra tid

OE Old Eng. Martyrol. (Julius) 1 Nov. 243 On ðone ærystan dæg þæs [monðes] bið ealra haligra tid. OE Wulfstan Canons of Edgar (Junius) (1972) liv. 13 Ærest on easteræfen, and oðre siðe on candelmæsseæfen, þriddan siðe on ealra halgena mæsseæfen. 1325 Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) l. 8601 (MED) A sterre þat comete icluped is At alle halwen tid him ssewede. 1447 in S. A. Moore Lett. & Papers J. Shillingford (1871) i. 16 (MED) The morun tuysday, al Halwyn yeven. 1548 in J. G. Nichols Chron. Grey Friars 57 This yere before Alhallontyd was sett up the howse for the markyt folke in Newgate market for to waye melle in. 1556 in J. G. Nichols Chron. Grey Friars 17 Thys yere the towne of Depe was tane..on Halhalon evyn. 1616 W. Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1623) ii. i. 121 Clo. Was’t not at Hallowmas Master Froth? Fro. Allhallond-Eue. 1653 I. Walton Compl. Angler 222 About All-hollantide, when you see men ploughing up heath-ground.

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch

over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.

I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;

fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.

I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor

where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.

I have been her kind.

– Anne Sexton

§ 31. Das Da-sein als Verstehen, Am morgen ein Bier und der Tag gehört dir … In vino veritas

Trink, trink, Brüderlein, trink Lass doch die Sorgen zu Haus

Die Befindlichkeit ist eine der existenzialen Strukturen, in denen sich das Sein des »Da« hält. Gleichursprünglich mit ihr konstituiert dieses Sein das Verstehen. Befindlichkeit hat je ihr Verständnis, wenn auch nur so, daß sie es niederhält. Verstehen ist immer gestimmtes.

Wenn wir dieses als fundamentales Existenzial interpretieren, dann zeigt sich damit an, daß dieses Phänomen als Grundmodus des Seins des Daseins begriffen wird. »Verstehen« dagegen im Sinne einer möglichen Erkenntnisart unter anderen, etwa unterschieden von »Erklären«, muß mit diesem als existenziales Derivat des primären, das Sein des Da überhaupt mitkonstituierenden Verstehens interpretiert werden.

Die bisherige Untersuchung ist denn auch schon auf dieses ursprüngliche Verstehen gestoßen, ohne daß sie es ausdrücklich in das Thema einrücken ließ. Das Dasein ist existierend sein Da, besagt einmal: Welt ist »da«; deren Da-sein ist das In-sein. Und dieses ist imgleichen »da« und zwar als das, worumwillen das Dasein ist. Im Worumwillen ist das existierende In-der-Welt-sein als solches erschlossen, welche Erschlossenheit Verstehen genannt wurde1. Im Verstehen des Worumwillen ist die darin gründende Bedeutsamkeit miterschlossen. Die Erschlossenheit des Verstehens betrifft als die von Worumwillen und Bedeutsamkeit gleichursprünglich das volle In-der-Welt-sein. Bedeutsamkeit ist das, woraufhin Welt als solche erschlossen ist. Worumwillen und Bedeutsamkeit sind im Dasein erschlossen, besagt: Dasein ist Seiendes, dem es als In-der-Welt-sein um es selbst geht.

Wir gebrauchen zuweilen in ontischer Rede den Ausdruck »etwas verstehen« in der Bedeutung von »einer Sache vorstehen können«, »ihr gewachsen sein«, »etwas können«. Das im Verstehen als Existenzial Gekonnte ist kein Was, sondern das Sein als Existieren. Im Verstehen liegt existenzial die Seinsart des Daseins als Sein-können. Dasein ist nicht ein Vorhandenes, das als Zugabe noch besitzt, etwas zu können, sondern es ist primär Möglichsein. Dasein ist je das, was es sein kann und wie es seine Möglichkeit ist. Das wesenhafte Möglichsein des Daseins betrifft die charakterisierten Weisen des Besorgens der »Welt«, der Fürsorge für die anderen und in all dem und immer schon das Seinkönnen zu ihm selbst, umwillen seiner. Das Möglichsein, das je das Dasein existenzial ist, unterscheidet sich ebensosehr von der leeren, logischen Möglichkeit wie von der Kontingenz eines Vorhandenen, sofern mit diesem das und jenes »passieren« kann. Als modale Kategorie der Vorhandenheit bedeutet Möglichkeit das noch nicht Wirkliche und das nicht jemals Notwendige. Sie charakterisiert das nur Mögliche. Sie ist ontologisch niedriger als Wirklichkeit und Notwendigkeit. Die Möglichkeit als Existenzial dagegen ist die ur-1 Vgl. § 18,S. 85 ff.

Meide den Kummer und meide den Schmerz Dann ist das Leben ein Scherz, Meide den Kummer und meide den Schmerz Ja, dann ist das Leben ein Scherz!

The Work … and man made this curse a pleasure

Instead of man striving for a bright present in the world, for a solar and sparkling existence, instead of living for himself – not in the sense of selfishness, but of inner growth – he became a sinful and impotent slave of the reality outside

„Oamenii muncesc în general prea mult pentru a mai putea fi ei înşişi. Munca este un blestem. Iar omul a făcut din acest blestem o voluptate. A munci din toate forţele numai pentru muncă, a găsi o bucurie într-un efort care nu duce decât la realizări irelevante, a concepe că te poţi realiza numai printr-o muncă obiectivă şi neîncetată, iată ceea ce este revoltător şi ininteligibil. Munca susţinută şi neîncetată tâmpeşte, trivializează şi impersonalizează. Ea deplasează centrul de preocupare şi interes din zona subiectivă întro zonă obiectivă a lucrurilor, într-un plan fad de obiectivitate. Omul nu se interesează atunci de destinul său personal, de educaţia lui lăuntrică, de intensitatea unor fosforescente interne şi de realizarea unei prezente iradiante, ci de fapte, de lucruri. Munca adevărată, care ar fi o activitate de continuă transfigurare, a devenit o activitate de exteriorizare, de ieşire din centrul fiinţei. Este caracteristic că în lumea modernă munca indică o activitate exclusiv exterioară. De aceea, prin ea omul nu se realizează, ci realizează. Faptul că fiecare om trebuie să aibă o carieră, să intre într-o formă de viaţă care aproape niciodată nu-i convine, este expresia acestei tendinţe de imbecilizare prin muncă. Să munceşti pentru ca să trăieşti, iată o fatalitate care la om e mai dureroasă decât la animal. Căci la acesta activitatea este atât de organică, încât el n-o separă de existenta sa proprie, pe când omul îşi dă seama de plusul considerabil pe care-l adaugă fiinţei sale complexul de forme al muncii. In frenezia muncii, la om se manifestă una din tendinţele lui de a iubi răul, când acesta este fatal şi frecvent. Şi în muncă omul a uitat de el însuşi. Dar n-a uitat ajungând la naivitatea simplă şi dulce, ci la o exteriorizare vecină cu imbecilitatea. Prin muncă a devenit din subiect obiect, adică un animal, cu defectul de a fi mai putin sălbatic. In loc ca omul să tindă la o prezentă strălucitoare în lume, la o existentă solară şi sclipitoare, în loc să trăiască pentru el însuşi – nu în sens de egoism, ci de creştere interioară – a ajuns un rob păcătos şi impotent al realităţii din afară.”

“People generally work too much to be themselves. Work is a curse. And man made this curse a pleasure. To work with all one’s strength only for work, to find joy in an effort that leads only to irrelevant achievements, to conceive that one can achieve oneself only through objective and unceasing work, this is what is revolting and unintelligible. Sustained and incessant work dulls, trivializes and impersonalizes. It moves the center of concern and interest from the subjective area to an objective area of things, in a bland plane of objectivity. Man is then not interested in his personal destiny, in his inner education, in the intensity of some internal phosphorescence and in the realization of a radiant present, but in facts, in things. True work, which would be an activity of continuous transfiguration, has become an activity of externalization, of leaving the center of being. It is characteristic that in the modern world work indicates an exclusively external activity. Therefore, through it man does not realize himself, but achieves. The fact that every man has to have a career, to enter into a form of life that almost never suits him, is the expression of this tendency to become imbecile through work. To work in order to live, here is a fatality that is more painful for humans than for animals. Because for him the activity is so organic that he does not separate it from his own existence, while man realizes the considerable plus that the complex of forms of work adds to his being. In the frenzy of work, man manifests one of his tendencies to love evil, when it is fatal and frequent. And in work man forgot about himself. But he did not forget, reaching simple and sweet naivety, but an externalization bordering on imbecility. Through work he became an object from a subject, i.e. an animal, with the defect of being less wild. Instead of man striving for a bright present in the world, for a solar and sparkling existence, instead of living for himself – not in the sense of selfishness, but of inner growth – he became a sinful and impotent slave of the reality outside .”

– Emil Cioran

A Brief Abstract of The Mahabharata

Consisting of 18 books, or parvas, this story revolves around the conflict between two factions of cousins, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura. It includes the famous Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture and a philosophical conversation between Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna. The epic explores various themes such as duty, righteousness, family, war, and the nature of reality. It contains many notable characters: Krishna, Arjuna, Yudhishthira, Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva, Draupadi, Duryodhana, and Karna. Known for its narrative, the moral, and philosophical dilemmas presented; it has a profound influence on Indian culture, literature, and religious beliefs.

महाभारत, संक्षिप्त सार

Book 1 Adi Parva, The Beginning

The daughter of the river was named Girika and the king made her his wife. Once, the time for intercourse arrived and Vasu’s wife, Girika, having purified herself by bathing at the fertile time, informed her husband about her state. But on that very day, his ancestors came to him and asked the best of kings and wisest of men to kill some deer. Thinking that the command of his ancestors should be followed, he went out to hunt, thinking of Girika, who was exceedingly beautiful and like Shri herself. He was so excited that the semen was discharged in the beautiful forest and wishing to save it, the king of the earth collected it in the leaf of a tree. The lord thought that his semen should not be wasted in vain and that his wife’s fertile period should not pass barren. Then the king thought about this many times and the best of kings firmly decided that his semen would be productive, since the semen was issued when his queen’s time was right. Learned in the subtleties of dharma and artha, the king consecrated the semen, which was productive for producing progeny, and addressed a hawk that was seated nearby. ‘O amiable one! Please take this seed to my wife Girika. She is in her season now. The swift hawk took it from him and flew speedily through the sky.

The Adi Parva introduces the key characters and provides the background leading up to the great Kurukshetra War. It begins with the sage Vyasa narrating the story to the divine sage Narada. Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, is the son of the sage Parashara and Satyavati. He is requested by Brahma, the creator of the universe, to compose the epic to enlighten and guide humanity.

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The Final Roadside Circle of Picnic Paradise

Everything is now understandable. It’s odious, that I understand…. Better if I understood nothing, better if, upon regaining consciousness, I shrugged my shoulders and climbed out of the bath. Would it have been understandable to Strogoff and Einstein and Petrarch? Imagination is a priceless gift, but it must not be given an inward direction. Only outward, only outward… What a tasty worm some corrupter has dropped from his rod into this stagnant pool! And how accurately timed! Yes indeed, if I were commander of Wells’ Martians, I would not have bothered with fighter tripods, heat rays, and other such nonsense. Illusory existence … no, this is not a narcotic, a narcotic has a long way to go to approach it. In a way this is exactly appropriate. Here. Now. To each time its own. Poppy seeds and hemp, the kingdom of sweet blurred shadows and peace — for the beggar, the worn-out, the downtrodden… But here no one wants peace, here no one is dying of hunger, here is simply a bore. A well-fed, well-heated, drunken bore. It’s not that the world is bad, it’s just plain dreary. World without prospects, world without promise. But in the end man is not a carp, he still remains a man. Yes, it is no kingdom of shades, it is indeed the real existence, without detraction, without dreary confusion. Slug is moving on the world and the world will not mind subjecting itself to it.

今理解
すべて薄味
自己への風

心の虫
湖に落とされ
時適切

平和拒む
飽きた世界では
人は人

新しい感覚
長く隠されて
奇跡への希望

金が救わぬ
自己依存の穴
奇跡の確信

Some strange and very new sensation was slowly filling him. He realized that this sensation wasn’t actually new, that it had long been hiding somewhere inside him, but he only now became aware of it, and everything fell into place. And an idea, which had previously seemed like nonsense, like the insane ravings of a senile old man, turned out to be his sole hope and his sole meaning of life. It was only now that he’d understood—the one thing that he still had left, the one thing that had kept him afloat in recent months, was the hope for a miracle. He, the idiot, the dummy, had been spurning this hope, trampling on it, mocking it, drinking it away—because that’s what he was used to and because his whole life, ever since his childhood, he had never relied on anyone but himself. And ever since his childhood, this self-reliance had always been measured by the amount of money he managed to wrench, wrestle, and wring out of the surrounding indifferent chaos. That’s how it had always been, and that’s how it would have continued, if he hadn’t found himself in a hole from which no amount of money could rescue him, in which self-reliance was utterly pointless. And now this hope—no longer the hope but the certainty of a miracle—was filling him to the brim, and he was already amazed that he’d managed to live in such a bleak, cheerless gloom …

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Norstrilia, the story is simple …

地の香り、
生命の証拠、
不思議な驚き。

水の記憶、
万年のコード、
星を征服。

豊かさに、
あふれる生と死、
ノーストリリアは知らぬ。

But he didn’t want girls. He wanted postage stamps …

“You may not know it, my darling,” spieked the great bird-man, “but long before these people build cities, there were others in the Earth – the ones who came after the Ancient World fell. They went far beyond the limitations of the human form. They conquered death. They did not have sickness. They did not need love. They sought to be abstractions lying outside of time. And they died, E’lamelanie – they died terribly. Some became monsters, preying on the remnants of true men for reasons which ordinary men could not even begin to understand. Others were like oysters, wrapped up in their own sainthood. They had all forgotten that humanness is itself imperfection and corruption, that what is perfect is no longer understandable. We have the fragments of the Word, and we are truer to the deep traditions of people than people themselves are, but we must never be foolish enough to look for perfection in this life or to count on our own powers to make us really different from what we are. You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human. It is the word which quickens, not the shape or the blood or the texture of flesh or hair or feathers. And there is that power which you and I do not name, but which we love and cherish because we need it more than do the people on the surface. Great beliefs always come out of the sewers of cities, not out of the towers of the ziggurats. Furthermore, we are discarded animals, not used ones. All of us down here are the rubbish which mankind has thrown away and has forgotten. We have a great advantage in this because we know from the very beginning of our lives that we are worthless. And why are we worthless? Because a higher standard and a higher truth says that we are – the conventional law and the unwritten customs of mankind. But I feel love for you, my daughter, and you have love for me. We know that everything which loves has a value in itself, and that therefore this worthlessness of underpeople is wrong. We are forced to look beyond the minute and the hour to the place where no clocks work and no day dawns. There is a world outside of time, and it is to that which we appeal. I know that you have a love for the devotional life, my child, and I commend you for it, but it would be a sorry faith which waited for passing travelers or which believed that a miracle or two could set the nature of things right and whole. The people on the surface think they have gone beyond the old problems, because they do not have buildings which they call churches or temples, and they do not have professional religious men within their communities. But the higher power and the large problems still wait for all men, whether men like it or not. Today, Believing among mankind is a ridiculous hobby, tolerated by the Instrumentality because the Believers are unimportant and weak, but mankind has moments of enormous passion which will come again and in which we will share. So don’t you wait for your hero beyond the stars. If you have a good devotional life within you, it is already here, waiting to be watered by your tears and ploughed up by your hard, clear thoughts. And if you don’t have a devotional life, there are good lives outside.

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