/lit/ - Literature

That was a long, long walk just to get two boys to kiss.

Demian by Herman Hesse

> . . . our god’s name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world. Abraxas does not take exception to any of your thoughts, any of your dreams. Never forget that.

>There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people love such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.

>An enlightened man had but one duty – to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward , no matter where it leads.

>Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal – that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself.

>Humanity, which they loved as we did – was for them something complete that must be maintained and protected. For us humanity was a distant goal toward which all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down.

>The only duty and destiny we acknowledge was that each of us should become so completely himself, so utterly faithful to the active seed which Nature planted within him, that in living out its growth he could be surprised by nothing known to come.

I leave you with my favorite passage from the novel:
>The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.

Demian by Herman Hesse

> . . . our god’s name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world. Abraxas does not take exception to any of your thoughts, any of your dreams. Never forget that.
>There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people love such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.
>An enlightened man had but one duty – to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward , no matter where it leads.
>Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal – that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself.
>Humanity, which they loved as we did – was for them something complete that must be maintained and protected. For us humanity was a distant goal toward which all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down.
>The only duty and destiny we acknowledge was that each of us should become so completely himself, so utterly faithful to the active seed which Nature planted within him, that in living out its growth he could be surprised by nothing known to come.

I leave you with my favorite passage from the novel:
>The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.

Recommend non-cognitive "mind-awakening" literature with good prose.

>book features a nietzschean anti-hero
Dropped