“… What are we, and what is the universe? what are we in the universe? These are questions that leave us speechless, and that we are accustomed to answering with a joke so as not to seem ridiculous.
“We, I would venture to guess, are the books we have read, the paintings we have seen, the music we have heard and forgotten, the streets we have walked. We are our childhood, our family, some friends, a few loves, more than a few disappointments. A sum reduced by infinite subtractions. We are shaped by different times, hobbies, and creeds. “
Sergio Pitol, The Art of Flight
3 responses to “Sergio Pitol, The Art of Flight”
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Yes. A book re this is Ernst Becker’s ‘The Denial of Death’. And it quotes a lot of existentialist writers (Nietzsche, Camus, and Kiekergaard) and also Freud and others, the post-Freudians. But I think we need to “pretend” that these many meaningful meaninglessnesses are still somehow something. For me… well, I cant show it… but I feel there is some meaning. Paradoxically I like the idea that it is so mysterious and unfathomable. I would never become quite like the worst side of Omar Kayyam and the carpe diem people (although I like what I have read of Herrick and so on): but I find meaning in reading books, others in music or the look on a face or cloud shapes, sounds, and much else. It helps also to feel well even as one ages….
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Thanks for the reply! I’m not sure what it is to find meaning. If it is to believe in a special role for human consciousness in the universe, or a plan, or an afterlife, I am skeptical. But if it is to put value in a kind of immanent experience, as I do in books, music, friendship, etc, then I’m all for it.
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Hello, and thank you for your work.
I think it helps to put the question(s) into a wider sphere: each of us once did not exist. So there is that to ponder as well (or beforehand and during). It’s the relativity of it all that baffles.
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Huenemanniac 
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