I think of Robert Musil’s wisdom, his insight into the human
condition, or perhaps, it would be better to say, the human “game.” His wisdom is worldly wisdom, certainly, not Godly
(re: the quote in the previous post), but, in many ways, Musil is the most
unworldly of writers. No one else writes
as ably on the theme of “vanity of vanities.
All is vanity.” At the heart of
his work is the search for mystical truth--even though most of his characters
squander their chances of ever finding it.
Instead, they find the decay, the vacancy, that all worldly pursuit
eventually results in; the accumulation of experience without meaning. I think of the passage from Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften:
Es gibt kein zweites solches Beispiel der Unentrinnbarkeit
wie das, das ein begabter junger Mensch bietet, wenn er sich zu einem
gewöhnlichen alten Menschen einengt; ohne Schlag des Schicksals, nur durch die
Einschrumpfung, die ihm vorher bestimmt war!
and I need only look around me, or at myself, to know how
true this is. The only remedy is to stay
spiritually youthful, or, as Musil would say, to stay always in love; to stay
on the journey to the East . . .
