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on the heights of despair 
by: e. m. Ciorantranslated and with an introduction byilinca zarifopol-johnstonthe university of chicago press chicago & londonthe university of chicago press, chicago 60637the university of chicago press, ltd., london(c) 1992 by the university of chicagoall rights reserved. published 1992printed in the united states of americaisbn (cloth): 0-226-10670-5originally published as pe culmile disperrii by the fundacia pentru literatur ^iart"regele carol ii," 1934.library of congress cataloging-in-publication datacioran, e. m. (emile m.), 1911-[pe culmile disperrii. english]on the heights of despair / e.m. cioran ; translated and with an introduction by ilincazarifopol-johnston.p. cm.translation of: pe culmile disperrii.1. philosophy. i. title.b99.r652c5613 1990contentson being lyrical 3how distant everything is! 6on not wanting to live 8the passion for the absurd 10the world and i 14weariness and agony 16despair and the grotesque 18the premonition of madness 20on death 22enthusiasm as a form ofmelancholy 29nothing is important 33ecstasy 35the world in which nothing is solved 37the contradictory and the inconsequential 39on sadness 41total dissatisfaction 43the bath of fire 45disintegration 46on the reality of the body 48
 
i do not know 49on individual and cosmic loneliness 50apocalypse 52the monopoly of suffering 54absolute lyricism 57the meaning of grace 59the vanity of compassion 61eternity and morality 62moment and eternity 64history and eternity 66not to be a man anymore 68magic and fatality 70transfiguration of banality 101unimaginable joy 72the ambiguity of suffering 73all is dust 74love 75light and darkness 79renunciation 81on the transubstantiation of love 84the blessings of insomnia 83man, the insomniac animal 85truth, what a word! 87the beauty of flames 88the paucity of wisdom 89the return to chaos 90irony and self-irony 91on poverty 93the flight from the cross 95the cult of infinity 98the burden of sadness 103degradation through work 104the sense of endings 106the satanic principle of suffering 108e. m. cioran: a short chronology 127
on being lyrical
why can't we stay closed up inside ourselves? why do we chase after expression and form, trying to deliver ourselves of our precious contents or "meanings," desperately attempting to organize what is after all a rebellious andchaotic process? wouldn't it be more creative simply to surrender to our inner fluiditywithout any intention of objectifying it, intimately and voluptuously soaking in our own inner turmoil and struggle? then we would feel with much richer intensity the
 
whole inner growth of spiritual experience. all kinds of insights would blend andflourish in a fertile effervescence. a sensation of actuality and spiritual content wouldbe born, like the rise of a wave or a musical phrase. to be full of one's self, not in thesense of pride, but of enrichment, to be tormented by a sense of inner infinity, meansto live so intensely that you feel you are about to die of life. such a feeling is so rareand strange that we would live it out with shouts. i feel i could die of life, and i askmyself if it makes any sense to look for an explanation. when your entire spiritualpast vibrates inside you with a supreme tension, when a sense of total presenceresurrects buried experiences and you lose your normal rhythm, then, from theheights of life, you are caught by death without the fear which normally accompaniesit. it is a feeling similar to that experienced by lovers on the heights of happiness,when they have a passing but intense intimation of death or when a premonition of betrayal haunts their budding love.only a few can endure such experiences to the end. there is always a seriousdanger in repressing something which requires objectification, in locking up explosiveenergy, because there comes a moment when one cannot restrain suchoverwhelming power. and then the fall is from too much plenitude. there areexperiences and obsessions one cannot live with. salvation lies in confessing them.the terrifying experience of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomesruinous. if you talk about death, you save part of your self. but at the same time,something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality theyhave in consciousness. this is why lyricism represents a dispersion of subjectivity; it isa certain quantity of an individual's spiritual effervescence which cannot becontained and needs constant expression. to be lyrical means you cannot stay closedup inside yourself. the need to externalize is the more intense, the more the lyricismis interiorized, profound, and concentrated. why is the suffering or loving man lyrical?because such states, although different in nature and orientation, spring up from thedeepest and most intimate part of our being, from the substantial center of subjectivity, as from a radiation zone. one becomes lyrical when one's life beats to anessential rhythm and the experience is so intense that it synthesizes the entiremeaning of one's personality. what is unique and specific in us is then realized in aform so expressive that the individual rises onto a universal plane. the deepestsubjective experiences are also the most universal, because through them onereaches the original source of life. true interiorization leads to a universalityinaccessible to those who remain on the periphery. the vulgar interpretation of universality calls it a phenomenon of quantitative expansion rather than aqualitatively rich containment. such an interpretation sees lyricism as a peripheraland inferior phenomenon, the product of spiritual inconsistency, failing to notice thatthe lyrical resources of subjectivity show remarkable freshness and depth. there arepeople who become lyrical only at crucial moments in their life; some only in thethroes of death, when their entire past suddenly appears before them and hits themwith the force of a waterfall. many become lyrical after some decisively criticalexperience, when the turmoil of their inner being reaches paroxysm. thus people whoare normally inclined toward objectivity and impersonality, strangers both tothemselves and to reality, once they become prisoners of love, experience feelingswhich actualize all their personal resources. the fact that almost everybody writes
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Thank you this is... just awesome I never read anything by this author... kindred thoughts to mine... lol

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