“That Comes From Elsewhere and From Without"

October 2000

Those words will be what I would call the beginning of terrible things. But it somehow reached an unintended, yet good goal. You know how it is with goals — they’re never really goals, although once achieved, they somehow seem to have been.

Over there, with you, it seemed to surprise you. But now, when you’re so close — it’s not that it’s hard to accept, but somehow it just feels strangely beautifully irrational — that’s what I would say.

And I’m writing to you even about such trifles as leaving because, as you surely remember, that’s what one tells a friend. (Don’t I come with each letter and leave long after it’s been read?) Every day we find ourselves embroiled in activities; you go to teach, I go to study, you read, I read. We cannot help but to judge our realities. This is an essential trait of our freedom. So it is the interpretation of reality that determines the degree of happiness that we are able to “achieve” (terrible word, really). And so there is coming back from realities, plans, achievements, and failures to the most precious treasures (the kind that can’t be replaced). I can look upon this magnificent gold, while they possess only ordinary stones, and what I “hold” surpasses everything else. Because them, even if they held such a treasure in their hands, they wouldn’t even recognise it. I’m not writing this to flatter you, but to make it clear that if I ever wanted to get rid of this, although I don’t think that I ever would… it would be a tragic, an act driven by something terrible or extraordinary. And if something like that ever happens, don’t believe it right away. It wouldn’t be a verdict — and not necessarily a decision I could make entirely on my own.

Remember that there are unforeseen moments that do happen.

So I’m writing to you... Because I can, because I want... because it’s such a pleasant thing to do when everything feels so grey and existential. Evenings are much better—well, maybe not better, but more beautiful.
And I’m so in love with the beauty. Are we beauty-seekers, artists with our trades yet to discover or mere humans, from whom humanity must be expected?

We respond to the demands of our experiences in many ways, don’t we? Morally, spiritually, aesthetically, rationally, and imaginatively. And being free even allows us to turn our back on reason! Ironically, the latter is the result of animal instincts allowed to run rampant!

You were so surprised to see me disappearing in the darkness of the lake. Maybe I stayed slightly too long underneath. I enjoyed the beauty of a descent. But to a prudent person who does not know how to swim, how to hold a breath for longer, sitting by the shore would be enough to quench his curiosity. Both swimming and diving require temperance and prudence, two exclusively human virtues.

So now I leave to be far away, so that only distance keeps me from being here. I drift away, to hang somewhere joyfully, like a black—or rather, a grey—bat.

And as for here, where I am to return, I’m so glad to have the space to slip in, with my terrible letters into optimistic envelopes. The most beautiful dreams, the dearest dreams… So beautiful it’s hard to say whether they could ever come true… I’m writing, really, because I miss that addition to me, something that won’t raise my happiness in the slightest; I am already happy, even if it isn’t the summit.
And there’s still room for the night sky.

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the Saints and God.
—Yes; but is it not to be happy to have a faculty
of being amused by diversion?
—No; for that comes
from elsewhere and from without, and thus is dependent,
and therefore subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents,
which bring inevitable griefs.

—Pascal