/lit/ - Literature

>>17903142
>be fully persuaded seems impossible
Carlo Michelstaedter knows well that to the impossible we are all held, and that what he calls the "right to live" (p. 78) is only snatched away at the price of a constant, infinite work, in fact: the "right to live" (p. 78) is a right to live. 78) can be torn off only at the price of a constant work, infinite in truth: "For just as the hyperbola approaches the asymptote infinitely, so the man who, in living, wants to be in possession of his life, approaches the straight line of justice infinitely; and just as the curve, however small the distance from a point of the hyperbola to the asymptote, must be infinitely prolonged to reach the contact, so the duty of a man towards justice, however modest what he asks as right for himself in his life, remains infinite" (pp. 77-8).
Difficult, perhaps even impossible to take, is the way, I said, the only way to salvation, and it is certain that the majority of us will always prefer to consolidate our meager assurances, to continue to sleep rather than to wake up: "But men are like the one who dreams of getting up and who, realizing that he is still lying down, does not get up but goes back to dreaming that he is getting up", while thus, Michelstaedter continues, "without getting up and without ceasing to dream, he continues to suffer from the vivid image that disturbs the peace of his sleep and from the immobility that renders vain the action of which he dreams" (p. 72).
And the author continues, not leaving in peace the one to whom he addresses, imagining well that the men, almost all the men, will not fail to oppose him a multitude of arguments which are so many cries betraying their fear, the fear of the death which pushes them to live without persuasion (cf. p. 77): "My legs are wobbly, and your path is impassable", and to these he replies: "There are the lame and the able-bodied - but man must strengthen his own hocks to walk - and go forward where there is no road. By the usual ways men walk in a circle that has no beginning and no end; they come and go, they compete, they hurry, busy as ants - perhaps they confuse each other, - but even if they walk, they are still where they were, for all places are the same, in the valley with no end. Man must make his way to life, not to move among others, to take others with him, not to claim the rewards that are not in the way of men" (p. 73).