The Man Without Qualities/Six Reasons

Excerpts from Robert Musil's book written between 1921-1942 about the Austrian Empire in 1913 followed by some other things about which I've written.

"Ulrich had talked himself into a state of excitement. Basically, he now maintained, this experience of almost total ecstasy or transcendence of the conscious mind is akin to experiences now lost but known in the past of all religions, which makes it a kind of contemporary substitution for eternal human need. Even if it is not a very good substitute it is better than nothing.."

Later

"In a community coursed through by energies every road leads to a worthwhile goal, provided one doesn't hesitate or reflect too long. Targets are short-term, but since life is short too, results are maximized, which is all people need to be happy, because the soul is formed by what you accomplish, whereas what you desire without achieving it merely warps the soul. Happiness depends very little on what we want, but only on achieving whatever it is."

Later

"Looked at from a technical point of view, the world is simply ridiculous: impractical in all that concerns human relations, and extremely uneconomic and imprecise in its methods; anyone accustomed to solving his problems with a slide rule cannot take seriously a good half of the assertions people make...If you own a slide rule and someone comes along with grandiose statements and emotions, you say: "Just a moment please--let's first work out the margin for error and the most probable values."

Chapter Title.

"A chapter that may be skipped by anyone not particularly impressed by thinking as an occupation"

Six Reasons

1) Your toes. I've never been a fan of toes until now. These days I find myself staying up late at night trying to come up with the proper way to elucidate the mathematically exquisite curve of your pinkie nail protruding from the sheet.

2) The mathematical improbability. If you believe in any sort of multi-verse, and it's fair to say I do, then the chances that the two of us would have met are almost infinitely minute. Couple that with the improbability of life existing on the planet given what we've seen elsewhere, I think it's fair to say that we should probably just stay on for a while, watching the lightning rain jaggedly across the ocean, no matter how many mosquitoes are biting the backs of our knees.

3) Short winter days. Admittedly, the cold bare sidewalks and trees hung like telephone wires are a bit depressing, but I'd like you to remember that on these shortest of days, we are forced indoors, beneath a blanket, our arms wrapped familiarly around one another while the television shines from across the room like a lighthouse in that drowned room.

4) Cups of water brought to bed in the middle of the night and placed on top of a book so as not to leave mark on the wooden end table.

5) John Keats- "I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer day — three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."

6) Long drives. Their is something in me that loves passing from day into night without ever leaving the front seat of the car. We turn off the radio, and turn over conversation like a leaf drifting down in some dream of fall. We wait for small bridges, and quibble about the quality of the sunset, the sky, a masthead of clouds, wreathed in gold. The mind, a cup full of desires and regrets, still eager somehow, for both.