Things end.

People leave.

And you know what?

Life goes on.

Besides,

if bad things didn't happen,

how would you be able

to feel the good ones?

(?)

...

"I hate common humanity.

This oafish crowd

which tramples the ground

whence my cloud-capped pinnacles might rise.

I am tired of humanity—beyond measure.

Take it away.

This gaping, stinking, bombing,

shooting, throat-slitting,

cringing brawl of gawky,

under-nourished riff-raff.

Clear the earth of them!"

(Keppel from Star Begotten)

(various artists)

The destruction of the body by fire —

what a cleanly, sanitary, dignified,

yes, heroic conception that was,

compared with abandoning it

to the miserable processes

of decay and assimilation

by the lower forms of life!

For what the fire destroyed

was the more perishable part of the body,

the elements which

even during one’s life

were got rid of by metabolism;

whereas those which

accompanied man through life,

taking least share in the process of change,

those became the ashes,

and with them

the survivors possessed

the deceased’s imperishable part.

(Settembrini from The Magic Mountain)

Most of us to the very end of our lives
are obsessed by infantile cravings
for protection and direction,
and out of these cravings 
come all these impulses 
towards slavish subjection 
to gods, kings, leaders, heroes, bosses,
mystical personifications like the People,
My Country Right or Wrong, the Church,
the Party, the Masses, the Proletariat,

Our imaginations hang on
to some such Big Brother idea
almost to the end.
We will accept almost any self-abasement
rather than step out of the crowd
and be full-grown individuals.

And like all cubs and puppies and larval things,
we are full of fear.
What is the Sense of Sin
but the instinctive fear
of an immature animal?
Oh, we are doing wrong!
We are going to be punished for it!
We are full of fears,
fears of primal curses and mystical sin,
masochistic impulses to sacrifice
and propitiate and kneel and crawl.
It paralyses our happiest impulses.
It fills our world with
mean, cruel, and crazy acts.
(H.G. Wells – Star-begotten)

I am land

I am tree

I am sky

I am me

I am night

I am wind

I am sun

I am sin

I am warm

I am old

I am black

I am cold

I am good

I am art

I am life

I'm the start

All I am

Is all you can be

And all you can be

Has no end to me

(thanks Annita)

(various artists)

"Our excess of egotism!

We all have it.

It is a commonplace to say

man is as over-sexed

as a cageful of monkeys,

but sex is only one manifestation

of his stupendous egotism.

In every respect

he is insanely selfcentred —

beyond any biological need.

No animal, not even a dog,

has the acute self-consciousness,

the incessant, sore,

personal jealousy of a human being.

Fear is linked to this —

there is no clear boundary here —

and so is the hoarding instinct.

The love of property

for its own sake

comes straight out of fear.

This terrified, immature thing

wants to be safe, invincibly safe,

and so,

by the most natural transition,

fear develops into

the craving for possessions

and the craving for power.

From the escape defensive

to the aggressive defensive is a step.

He not only fears other beings,

he hates them, he flies at them.

He fights needlessly.

He is cruel. He loves to conquer.

He loves to persecute… . Man!"

(H.G. Wells - Star Begotten)

(various artists)

"Do you know

how a man makes

his way here?

By brilliant genius

or by skilful corruption.

You must either cut your way

through these masses of men

like a cannon ball,

or steal among them

like a plague.

Honesty is nothing to the purpose.

Men bow before the power of genius;

they hate it, and try to slander it,

because genius does not divide the spoil;

but if genius persists, they bow before it.

To sum it all up in a phrase,

if they fail to smother genius in the mud,

they fall on their knees and worship it.

Corruption is a great power in the world,

and talent is scarce.

So corruption is the weapon

of superfluous mediocrity;

you will be made

to feel the point of it everywhere."

(Vautrin from Father Goriot)

(Collision Art by Thomas Robson)

"When I grow up

there will be a day

when everybody

has to do

what I say."

(art by James Flaxman)