Despair

For many years I looked at my life like a case law, a series of proofs… underlying it all there was a presumption that I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation where… I would be justified, or even condemned—a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day—and the bench was empty! No judge in sight. All that remained was the endless argument with oneself—this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying—despair!

It was true, I had always realized it — I hadn’t any “right” to exist at all. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant, a microbe… that here we are eating and drinking, to preserve our precious existence, and that there’s nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing.

The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.

Life is a 'tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Shakespeare's Macbeth

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility but with panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of human existence which could easily be misinterpreted as pessimism.

Postmodernism opens with the sense of irrevocable loss and incurable fault—a death that 'begins' with the death of God and 'ends' with the death of ourselves. We are in a time between times and a 'place which is no place.'

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Quote: It was true, I had always realized it--I hadn't any "right" to exist at all. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant, a microbe. I could feel nothing to myself but an inconsequential buzzing. I was thinking...that here we are eating and drinking, to preserve our precious existence, and that there's nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing.

‘Despair, or folly?’ said Gandalf. ‘It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy!

How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?

At the sunrise I shall take you to the Lord Denethor again. No, when the summons comes, not at sunrise. The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.’

For yet another weapon, swifter than hunger, the Lord of the Dark Tower had: dread and despair.

‘As I have begun, so I will go on. We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin.

‘If it be truly the last, I am glad,’ said Saruman; ‘for I shall be spared the trouble of refusing it again. All my hopes are ruined, but I would not share yours. If you have any.’

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.