HAPPY MELANCHOLY

Diposkan pada oleh Skeptical Inquirer

I prefer the dramatic life, consumed by inner fires and tortured by destiny, to the intellectual, caught up in abstractions which do not engage the essence of our subjectivity. I despise the absence of risks, madness and passion in abstract thinking. How fertile live, passionate thinking is! Lyricism feeds it like blood pumped into the heart!

It is interesting to observe the dramatic process by which men, originally preoccupied with abstract and impersonal problems, so objective as to forget themselves, come to reflect upon their own subjectivity and upon existential questions once they experience sickness and suffering.

Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart.

 

The disparity between the world’s infinity and man’s finitude is a serious cause for despair; but when one looks at this disparity in states of melancholy, it ceases to be painful and the world appears endowed with a strange, sickly beauty. Real solitude implies a painful intermission in man’s life, a lonely struggle with the angel of death. To live in solitude means to relinquish all expectations about life. The only surprise in solitude is death. The great solitaries retreated from the world not to prepare them-
selves for life but, rather, to await with resignation its end

The same gracefulness marks melancholy landscapes. The wide perspective of Dutch or Renaissance landscape, with its eternity of lights and shadows, its undulating vales symbolizing infinity, its transfiguring rays of light which spiritualize the material world and the hopes and regrets of men who smile wisely — the whole perspective breathes an easy melancholy grace. In such a landscape, man seems to say regretfully and resignedly:
“What can we do? It’s all we have!”

At the end of all melancholy there is a chance of consolation or resignation. Its esthetic aspect holds possibilities for future harmony which are absent from profound organic sadness.

The latter ends in the irrevocable, the former in graceful dream. Although I feel that
my tragedy is the greatest in history—greater than the fall of empires—I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance.

I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence. If I had to choose between the world and me, I would reject the world, its lights and laws, unafraid to glide alone in absolute nothingness. Although life for me is torture. I cannot renounce it, because I do not believe in the absolute values in whose name I would sacrifice myself.

If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.

What if there were only absurd motives for living?

Could they still be called motives?

This world is not worth a sacrifice in the name of an idea or a belief. How much happier are we today because others have died for our well-being and our enlightment?

Well-being? Enlightment?

If anybody had died so that I could be happy, then I would be even more unhappy, because I do not want to build my life on a graveyard. There are moments when I feel responsible for all the suffering in history, since I cannot understand why some have shed blood for us. It would be a great irony if we could determine that they were happier than we are.

 

 

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Diterbitkan oleh Skeptical Inquirer

• Central For Inquiry (CFI) • Skeptical Inquirer • Free Inquiry • Point of Inquiry ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Yang nyata ialah manusia itu sendiri bukan tuhan, bukan manusia pikiran tuhan, tetapi tuhan adalah pikiran manusia, agama tidak merubah kenyataan dan mengukir sejarah, tetapi manusia itu sendiri yang merubah dan mengukirnya. Bukan tuhan yang menciptakan manusia tetapi tuhan adalah angan-angan manusia. Agama tidak merubah kenyataan tetapi menusia bisa merubah kenyataan. 2. Agama ialah proyeksi manusia : tuhan, neraka, surga, malaikat. Kenapa? Karena manusia butuh tempat untuk mencurahkan keluhan karena dunia tanpa hati, jadi penderitaan tempat lahirnya tuhan. Dengan demikian agama disebut keterasingan manusia dari kehidupan karena struktur masyarakat tidak mengizinkan secara penuh perealisasian diri sendiri, sehingga manusia membangun kerajaan angan-angan (agama). Dalam kenyataan manusia menderita lalu ia mengharapkan surga 3. kenapa agama khayalan, karena agama tidak inderawi, sedangkan manusia inderawi, manusia penuh dengan kepastian sedangkan agama berbau unsur spekulatif, unsur yang tidak bisa diterima secara ilmiah 4. Jadi agama dan tuhan ialah ciptaan manusia itu sendiri, tetapi manusia itu sendiri lupa dengan ciptaanya (seperti pada zaman jahiliyah dahulu sebelum nabi muhamad dating : orang-orang kafir zaman dahulu mengukir tuhan dari kayu dan batu, yang kemudian disembahnya, sama seperti kita kini yang memproyeksikan tuhan lalu menyembahnya). Agama penyembahan tuhan terhadap dirinya sendiri. Agama penyembahan manusia terhadap ciptaanya sendiri 5. Sehingga khayalan atau angan-angan itu mempunyai eksistensi realitas yang membuat manusia takut dan harus menyembahnya dan tuhan mempunyai hakikat lain yang manusia harus sembah. Sifat-sifat itu yang membuat manusia egois. 6. Penderitaan manusia ialah tempat lahirnya tuhan, penderitaan yang memaksa manusia mengasingkan diri ke dalam agama, itulah dasar yang menyebabkan manusia merasa butuh agama dan tuhan 7. Teologi harus diganti menjadi antropologi dan agama ialah candu rakyat. 8. Kritik agama hanya meruska bunga khayalan pada rantai, bukan bunganya yang harus dipatahkan tetapi rantai itu sendiri. Rantai (factor yang menyebabkan manusia mengasingkan diri ke dalam agama) 9. Kita seperti wayang dengan penuh kesadaran dan kemauan tetapi kita tidak bisa lepas dari tangan sang dalang. 10. Kalau semua ini benar, maka manusia bukan merealisasikan keinginanya tetapi mengharapkan berkah dariNYA (proyeksi manusia itu sendiri/perubahan pasif) 11. agama ialah keterbatasan: agama melarang kita bergaul dengan duniawi, sehingga kita hanya memikirkan surgawi Tanpa agama kita bisa hidup lebih baik, tanpa mengaharapkan hibah/welas asih dariNYA, hanya mengandalkan kenyataan dan diri sendiri. 12. Kepasrahan adalah kelemahan agama 13. Tuhan seperti halnya dengan setan, bila ia terus diyakini dengan adanya exsistensinya maka semakin berkuasalah ia, kita seperti member roh kepadanya dengan keyakinan kita. GROUP : https://www.facebook.com/groups/scientistsecularist