[screencap of google's tribute to Borges]
Starting this post by expressing how Jorge Luis Borges's Deutsches Requiem gave me the goosebumps, raising, erecting hairs all over the body, a tingling in the spine that needs not be explained, a guilt caused by the god complex that infected all people, though they may not be aware of it, as if it were natural, thus, it may not be beyond the normal at all, and this story tells the half-truths we may not want to half-accept, this story being a horror story without the monsters, except the the selves, the humanity, the god, the beast that is inherently in us, and, that we collectivley, deliberately, allow to come into all the planes of existence we can fathom and feel and fuck. Spontaneity, For international solidarity with Chile, Tilde. (A lame effort to attention-whore. Yes, fangurling hasn't ended yet. And I feel like I am being hated for it. Paranoia strikes like fuck. Anyway, sorry if this bothers you. Thanks in advance for dropping by.)
En el primer volumen de Parerga und paralipomena releí que todos los hechos que pueden ocurrirle a un hombre, desde el instante de su nacimiento hasta el de su muerte, han sido prefijados por él. Así, toda negligencia es deliberada, todo casual encuentro una cita, toda humillación una penitencia, todo fracaso una misteriosa victoria, toda muerte un suicidio. No hay consuelo más hábil que el pensamiento de que hemos elegido nuestras desdichas; esa teleología individual nos revela un orden secreto y prodigiosamente nos confunde con la divinidad. ¿Qué ignorado propósito (cavilé) me hizo buscar ese atardecer, esas balas y esa mutilación? No el temor de la guerra, yo lo sabía; algo más profundo. Al fin creí entender. Morir por una religión es más simple que vivirla con plenitud; batallar en Éfeso contra las fieras es menos duro (miles de mártires oscuros lo hicieron) que ser Pablo, siervo de Jesucristo; un acto es menos que todas las horas de un hombre. La batalla y la gloria son facilidades, más ardua que la empresa de Napoleón fue la de Raskolnikov. [source]
I hope she doesn't mistake me for fascist or a Nazi visionary of some sort. Here's Julian Palley's translation of the excerpt (though, of course, I suggest that you read the story first):
In the first volume of Parerga und Paralipomena I read again that everything which can happen to a man, from the instant of his birth until his death, has been preordained by him. Thus, every negligence is deliberate, every chance encounter an appointment, every humiliation a penitence, every failure a mysterious victory, every death a suicide. There is no more skillful consolation than the idea that we have chosen our own misfortunes; this individual teleology reveals a secret order and prodigiously confounds us with the divinity. What unknown intention (I questioned vainly) made me seek, that afternoon, those bullets and that mutilation? Surely not fear of war, I knew; something more profound. Finally I hit upon it. To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely; to battle in Ephesus against the wild beasts is not so trying (thousands of obscure martyrs did it) as to be Paul, servant of Jesus; one act is less than a man's entire 134life. War and glory are facilities; more arduous than the undertaking of Napoleon was that of Raskolnikov.
I miss reading Fyodor. Sighs. Hope to finish that Fyodor fiction soon, among other pending shit that remains pending. Oh, the eerie, fanatic, Nazi line?
Essentially, Nazism is an act of morality, a purging of corrupted humanity, to dress him anew.
and the conclusive paragraphs making sense, preaching, justifying stuff?
It has been said that every man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. This is the same as saying that every abstract contention has its counterpart in the polemics of Aristotle or Plato; across the centuries and latitudes, the names, faces and dialects change but not the eternal antagonists. The history of nations also registers a secret continuity. Arminius, when he cut down the legions of Varus in a marsh, did not realize that he was a precursor of the German Empire; Luther, translator of the Bible, could not suspect that his goal was to forge a people destined to destroy the Bible for all time; Christoph zur Linde, killed by a Russian bullet in 1758, was in some way preparing the victories of 1914; Hitler believed he was fighting for a nation but he fought for all, even for those which he detested and attacked. It matters not that his I was ignorant of this fact; his blood and his will were aware of it. The world was dying of Judaism and from that sickness of Judaism, the faith of Jesus; we taught it violence and the faith of the sword. That sword is slaying us, and we are comparable to the wizard who fashioned a labyrinth and was then doomed to wander in it to the end of his days; or to David, who, judging an unknown man, condemns him to death, only to hear the revelation: You are that man. Many things will have to be destroyed in order to construct the New Order; now we know that Germany also was one of those things. We have given more than our lives, we have sacrificed the destiny of our beloved Fatherland. Let others curse and weep; I rejoice in the fact that our destiny completes its circle and is perfect.An inexorable epoch is spreading over the world. We forged it, we who are already its victim. What matters if England is the hammer and we the anvil, so long as violence reigns and not servile Christian timidity? If victory and injustice and happiness are not for Germany, let them be for other nations. Let Heaven exist, even though our dwelling place is Hell.I look at myself in the mirror to discover who I am, to discern how I will act in a few hours, when I am face to face with death. My flesh may be afraid; I am not.
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