SEIZE THE DAY
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real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to
love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward.
'If
thou
canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?"
"Yes, doc, I think so," said Wilhelm listening-a little skeptically
but nonetheless hard.
"'What art thou?' Nothing. That's the answer, Nothing. In the
heart of hearts-Nothing ! So of course, you can't stand that and want
to be Something, and you try. But instead of being this Something, the
man puts
it
over on everybody instead. You can't be that strict to your–
self. You love a
little.
Like, you have a dog" (Scissors!) "or give some
money to a charity drive. Now that isn't love, is it? What is it? Egotism,
pure and simple. It's a way to love the pretender soul. Vanity. Only
vanity, is what it is. And social control. The interest of the pretender–
soul is the same as the interest of the social life, the society mechanism.
This is the main tragedy of human life. Oh, it is terrible! Terrible!
You are not free. Your own betrayer is inside of you and sells you out.
You have to obey him like a slave. He makes you work like a horse.
And for what? For who?"
"Yes, for what?" The doctor's words caught Wilhelm's heart. "I
couldn't agree more," he said. "When do we get free?"
"The purpose is to keep the whole thing going. The true soul is the
one that pays the price.
It
suffers and gets sick, and it realizes that the
pretender can't be loved. Because the pretender is a lie. The true soul
loves the truth. And when the true soul feels like this, it wants to kill the
pretender. The love has turned into hate. Then you become dangeroUi.
A killer. You have to kill the deceiver."
"Does this h appen to everybody?"
The doctor answered simply, "Yes, to everybody. Of course, for
simplification purposes, I have spoken of the soul; it isn't the scientific
term, but it helps you to understand it. Whenever the slayer slays, he
wants to slay the soul in him which has gypped and deceived him. Who
is his enemy? Him. And his lover? Also. Therefore, all suicide is murder,
and all murder is suicide. It's the one and identical phenomenon.
Biologically, the pretender soul takes away the energy of the true soul and
makes it feeble, like a parasite.
It
happens unconsciously, unawaringly,
in the depths of the organism. Ever take up parasitology?"
"No, it's my dad who's the doctor."
"You should read a book about it."
Wilhelm said, "But this means that the world is full of murderers.
So it's not the world. It's a kind of hell."
"Sure," the doctor said. "At least a kind of purgiatory. You walk
on the bodies. They are all around. I can see them cry
de profundis
and
wring their hands. I hear them, poor human things. I can't help hear–
ing. And my eyes are open to
it.
This is the human tragedy-comedy."
Wilhelm tried to capture his vision. And again the doctor looked
untrustworthy to him, and he doubted him. "Well," he said, "there
are also kind, ordinary, helpful people. They're .. . out in the country.
