C
Codreanu
Guest
Re: Damn!
> LOl. I will be here.
Here is something for you, ~Bertie. Something which I am sure will mean tragically much.
Two selections from the Romanian author E.M. Cioran's "The Heights of Despair" -- his first work, published in 1934.
The Blessings of Insomnia
Just as ecstasy purifies you of the particular and the contingent,
leaving nothing except light and darkness, so insomnia kills off
the multiplicity and diversity of the world, leaving you prey to
your private obsessions. What strangely enchanted tunes gush
forth during those sleepless nights! Their flowing tones are be-
witching, but there is a note of regret in this melodic surge which
keeps it short of ecstasy. What kind of regret? It is hard to say,
because insomnia is so complex that one cannot tell what the loss
is. Or maybe the loss is infinite. During wakeful nights, the pres-
ence of a single thought, or feeling, reigns supreme. It becomes
the source of the night's mysterious music. Thus transformed, the
thoughts of wakeful nights are mild enough to stir depths of uni-
versal anxiety in man's soul. Death itself, although still hideous,
acquires in the night a sort of impalpable transparency, an il-
lusory and musical character. Nevertheless, the sadness of this
universal night is like the sadness of Oriental music, in which the
mystery of death is more dominant than that of love.
Man, the Insomniac Animal
Whoever said that sleep is the equivalent of hope had a penetrat-
ing intuition of the frightening importance not only of sleep but
also of insomnia! The importance of insomnia is so colossal that I
am tempted to define man as the animal who cannot sleep. Why
call him a rational animal when other animals are equally rea-
sonable? But there is not another animal in the entire creation
that wants to sleep yet cannot. Sleep is forgetfulness: life's drama,
its complications and obsessions vanish completely, and every
awakening is a new beginning, a new hope. Life thus maintains a
pleasant discontinuity, the illusion of permanent regeneration.
Insomnia, on the other hand, gives birth to a feeling of irrevo-
cable sadness, despair, and agony. The healthy man—the animal
—only dabbles in insomnia: he knows nothing of those who
would give a kingdom for an hour of unconscious sleep, those as
terrified by the sight of a bed as they would be of a torture rack.
There is a close link between insomnia and despair. The loss of
hope comes with the loss of sleep. The difference between para-
dise and hell: you can always sleep in paradise, never in hell. God
punished man by taking away sleep and giving him knowledge.
Isn't deprivation of sleep one of the most cruel tortures practiced
in prisons? Madmen suffer a lot from insomnia; hence their de-
pressions, their disgust with life, and their suicidal impulses. Isn't
the sensation, typical of wakeful hallucinations, of diving into an
abyss, a form of madness? Those who commit suicide by throw-
ing themselves from bridges into rivers or from high rooftops
onto pavements must be motivated by a blind desire to fall and
the dizzying attraction of abysmal depths.
two and one half minutes remaining...
> LOl. I will be here.
Here is something for you, ~Bertie. Something which I am sure will mean tragically much.
Two selections from the Romanian author E.M. Cioran's "The Heights of Despair" -- his first work, published in 1934.
The Blessings of Insomnia
Just as ecstasy purifies you of the particular and the contingent,
leaving nothing except light and darkness, so insomnia kills off
the multiplicity and diversity of the world, leaving you prey to
your private obsessions. What strangely enchanted tunes gush
forth during those sleepless nights! Their flowing tones are be-
witching, but there is a note of regret in this melodic surge which
keeps it short of ecstasy. What kind of regret? It is hard to say,
because insomnia is so complex that one cannot tell what the loss
is. Or maybe the loss is infinite. During wakeful nights, the pres-
ence of a single thought, or feeling, reigns supreme. It becomes
the source of the night's mysterious music. Thus transformed, the
thoughts of wakeful nights are mild enough to stir depths of uni-
versal anxiety in man's soul. Death itself, although still hideous,
acquires in the night a sort of impalpable transparency, an il-
lusory and musical character. Nevertheless, the sadness of this
universal night is like the sadness of Oriental music, in which the
mystery of death is more dominant than that of love.
Man, the Insomniac Animal
Whoever said that sleep is the equivalent of hope had a penetrat-
ing intuition of the frightening importance not only of sleep but
also of insomnia! The importance of insomnia is so colossal that I
am tempted to define man as the animal who cannot sleep. Why
call him a rational animal when other animals are equally rea-
sonable? But there is not another animal in the entire creation
that wants to sleep yet cannot. Sleep is forgetfulness: life's drama,
its complications and obsessions vanish completely, and every
awakening is a new beginning, a new hope. Life thus maintains a
pleasant discontinuity, the illusion of permanent regeneration.
Insomnia, on the other hand, gives birth to a feeling of irrevo-
cable sadness, despair, and agony. The healthy man—the animal
—only dabbles in insomnia: he knows nothing of those who
would give a kingdom for an hour of unconscious sleep, those as
terrified by the sight of a bed as they would be of a torture rack.
There is a close link between insomnia and despair. The loss of
hope comes with the loss of sleep. The difference between para-
dise and hell: you can always sleep in paradise, never in hell. God
punished man by taking away sleep and giving him knowledge.
Isn't deprivation of sleep one of the most cruel tortures practiced
in prisons? Madmen suffer a lot from insomnia; hence their de-
pressions, their disgust with life, and their suicidal impulses. Isn't
the sensation, typical of wakeful hallucinations, of diving into an
abyss, a form of madness? Those who commit suicide by throw-
ing themselves from bridges into rivers or from high rooftops
onto pavements must be motivated by a blind desire to fall and
the dizzying attraction of abysmal depths.
two and one half minutes remaining...
