Emil Cioran XII

Set XII of my translations-variations of Emil Cioran’s untranslated notebooks, covering the period March 25 1964 — June 29 1965.

Previously:

Cioran I / Cioran II, Chazal / Cioran III, Chazal II / Cioran IV / Cioran V / Cioran VI / Cioran VII, Shestov I / Cioran VIII, Shestov II / Cioran IX, Shestov III / Cioran X / Cioran XI

March 25 1965

In desolation, you think of God. As always, it makes no difference whether you ‘believe in Him’ or not.

They’re trying to make me write an article which would necessarily be somewhat anti-Christian. I can’t do it — on what grounds but ressentiment can one vilify God? While we will never be able to measure what we have subtracted from ourselves by jettisoning our faith, the knowledge that we were made for nothing but prayer can never be forgotten, it can only become more sad.

A certain type of French artist who uses ‘self-estrangement’ as a ‘poetic technique.’ Anyone who can means-to-endify their existential position is not only obviously unestranged, but is likely — as most Frenchmen are — to be ‘at home in their body’ to an almost comical degree.

I am eternally hungry for bitterness; whether such bitterness has a cause is irrelevant.

A stranger to myself, to the police, and (especially) to God.

A void forms around anyone unwilling to share their opinions; I flee from such people as from the devil himself. It is only by having opinions that one participates in the human community, it is only by having opinions that one remains human.

We fear death, but we fear not fearing death a little more.

Destiny: providence decapitated.

Wandering around some French field, the lines of Hölderlin came back to me: “in the midst of the world’s beauty, you have always cried out to me, my love!”¹

From the very beginning, I’ve felt a sense of universal worthlessness; from the very beginning, I have carried on as if nothing was wrong.

I received a painful rejection from my publisher, but said nothing. Self-control: the glory of the slave.

When one lives permanently in abstract unhappiness, concrete unhappiness can seem so unforeseen that, when it occurs, one is almost beguiled into happiness.

April 3 1965

I must refrain from reprimanding anyone; if men could change, they would. But they can’t, and I, even less so.

Everyone is responsible, but I am even more responsible, said Dostoevsky.² I say: no one is responsible, but I am even less responsible.

‘He did this and that,’ people say about Heidegger, ‘it’s unforgivable for a philosopher!’ But qua philosopher, he should be forgiven everything because, qua philosopher, he never did anything.

Stomach ruined, intestines ruined. I can hardly digest anything anymore. Boiled vegetables or death — the only choice left for me.

April 5 1965

Terrible physical crisis; my ailments destroy my courage. How can I fight against an illness? It would be like declaring war against matter. I could have done that easily enough as a youth, but it’s precisely when you no longer have the strength to declare war on matter that matter declares war on you.

There is only one path: to wear down one’s despair, to weaken it by analysis, to bore it to death.

April 6 1965

Last night, at the Salle Pleyel, the St. John Passion. One line of which I find so moving that I was compelled to sing along: “To die means nothing, death is a form of joy.”³

Soloviev, a few moments before his death — in 1900 — said a prayer for the Jews on account of “the great trials that await them.”

April 13 1965

The doctor I saw yesterday about my intestines asked if I’d had any “suicidal thoughts." “All my life, nothing but that,” I said. His smile was both completely foolish and completely medical.

Ciotori’s burial at the Bagneux cemetery. Standing in front of his half-filled grave, I could only say one word to Lupasco: “Insanity.”