The Cult of Infinity


The Cult of Infinity

I cannot speak of infinity without experiencing a double vertigo, both external and internal—as if, suddenly abandoning a well – ordered existence, I threw myself into a whirlwind and began to move through space at the speed of thought.

My trajectory tends toward an eternal and inaccessible point. The farther this point moves into inconceivable distance, the faster the giddy gyrations of the whirlwind. Neither bright nor graceful, they have the intri- cate pattern of cosmic flames. The world is shaking and trembling, spinning at an infernally maddening speed as if the apocalypse were approaching.

But the world has no meaning; irrational at the core, it is, moreover, infinite. Meaning is conceivable only in a finite world, where one can reach something, where there are limits to stop our regression, clear points of reference, where history moves toward a goal envisioned by the theory of progress.

Universal meaninglessness gives way to ecstatic inebriation, an orgy of irrationality. Since the world has no meaning, let us live! Without definite aims or accessible ideals, let us throw ourselves into the roaring whirlwind of infinity, follow its tortuous path in space, burn in its flames, love its cosmic madness and total anarchy! One must bear within oneself the germs of this cosmic anarchy in order to grasp its meaning

Infinity shakes you to the roots of your being, disorganizes you, but it also makes you forget the petty, the contingent, and the insignificant.

How fortunate that, having lost all our hopes, we can still leap into infinity, dive into boundlessness, participate in the universal anarchy of its whirlwind! What happiness to be carried away by the madness of this incessant movement and to think less of our death than of our insanity, to fulfill a dream of cosmic barbarity and boundless exaltation! Let our falling out of this whirlwind not mean gradual extinction, but sustain our agony in the chaos of the original maelstrom. Let the pathos and drama of infinity come to us once more in the loneliness of death so that our passing away into nothingness will resemble an illumination amplifying the mystery and the meaninglessness of this world.

Normality, abnormality, are notions that no longer mean anything. Let us live in the ecstasy of infinity, let us love that which is boundless, let us destroy forms and institute the only cult without forms: the cult of infinity.

Infinity renders impossible any solution to the problem of meaning. It gives me demonic pleasure to think that the world lacks meaning because of infinity.

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