A Mad Maygar

A Hungarian write that you MUST read. Sandor Marai. Wrote a lot of books in his native tongue. Sadly, only two have been translated into English. Embers and Casanova in Bolzona. Both are excellent books, and I highly recommend them both Some of the most beautiful imagery and language I have come across in my varied readings, and my reading are pretty bloody varied. So much that I feel the need to share some. Marai posited a human attitude that
". . . does not hope for a supernatural reply to the problem of death, nor expect solutions to human problems from supernatural powers." "Man, a two-legged mammal abandoned and shaped by blind accidental will in an indifferent and hostile universe is the only living creature who can find his way in the world independently of his instincts."

Good stuff, and it leaves you wanting more which, lucky for the three people (if I am lucky) that read this dross, I will provide.

He later writes "St. Francis was compelled to fear death because he was a believer. I, for example, don't believe in an afterlife; so I am not afraid of death." "I hope to experience an absolute death, one that spares me the threat of resurrection: To step out into the Silence, into the Darkness without prosthesis and hope, the last dignity to which Man has the right between two Voids: the Void before birth and the Void after death."

Excellent ideas I think. Being a life-long (for the most part) non-believer, I really liked that passage. In some regards, it makes a lot of sense. As a believer I should fear death, in the believers way of thinking they must face the possibility that somewhere along life's path they did something that condemns them to whatever concept of hell they subscribe to. Though, in theory, the reward for a believer is great, the punishment is just as, if not greater. Much like Ivan Karamazov I chose to respectfully return my ticket, and not participate in this sort of belief system. At least in the non-believer's world everything happens while they are fully aware of it (for the most part).