Akin

“The greatest secret he taught us was that it isn’t the man who controls events but events that control the man. Any event that surprises a man has already been experienced by other men before him. The effects of all human possibilities have already been felt. Nothing that might happen to us here, as terrible or as felicitous as it might seem, is new. But what we experience is always new because every man is unique, the way every leaf and every tree is unique. Men share with each other the same lifeblood, but each feeds himself from it differently. Even if the new isn’t really new, it’s always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the world’s shores, generation after generation, wave after wave. So, in order to find yourself in life, to not lose yourself on the path, you must listen to the voice of duty. To think too much about yourself is to falter. Whoever understands this secret has the potential to live in peace. But it’s easier said than done.”

“Over time, I realized that if you have accumulated more anger inside yourself than a tiger has in him, the tiger will be afraid of you. Really, quite literally so. When a tiger is coming at you, you can gauge very well by his facial expression what he wants from you. You can judge by his eyes and ears. One cannot read bears like that. So, a tiger is coming toward you: if you see that his ears are down, that’s not a good sign. Then you have to look him in the eye with all the rage you can muster and the tiger will stop and back off. You don’t shout or scream—just look him in the eye, but with such hate that he would turn around and go away. After one, two, three times, they leave you alone.”

“Do you believe that you will die? Yes, people are mortal and if I am a person, then, of course . . . But that’s not what I mean. I know that you know this. I am asking: has it ever happened that you have believed in your death, believed in it totally, believed in it, not with your mind, but with your body, feeling that one day the fingers that are holding this very page will be yellow, icy . . .?
No: of course, you don’t believe in it—and that is why, up to now, you haven’t jumped from the tenth floor into the street, that is why up to now you have been eating, turning pages, shaving, smiling, writing . . .
That’s just what—yes, that is just exactly what I am going through today. I know that the small, black arrow down there on my timepiece is crawling toward midnight and that it will rise upwards again to cross some final line and then that improbable day will begin. I know this, but I still somehow don’t believe it—or, maybe it’s just that these twenty-four hours are passing like twenty-four years. And that is why I can still do things, rush to things, answer questions, and climb up the gangway to the Integral. I can still feel it rock slightly on the water, and I can understand that you have to hold on to the handrail (the glass is cold under your hand). I see the transparent, living cranes bending their swanlike necks, stretching out their beaks, thoughtfully and tenderly feeding the Integral with scary explosive food for its engine. And I can see clearly the blue, wind-swollen water veins and knots in the river below. But meanwhile: all this was very separate from me—it was foreign and flat, like a diagram on a leaf of paper. And strangely, the flat diagram of the face of the Second Builder suddenly speaks to me: “So tell me: how much fuel will the engine need? If you count three . . . well, three and a half hours . . .”