Weltschmerz

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"But my letter is getting longer and I have said nothing of what came to my mind after reading what you wrote about happiness. I do realize that the kind of happiness I was referring to is not happiness and, all things considered, no one would want it. But if I think that happiness is possible, I know all too well its hidden nature -and by what wretched paradox, instead of being an excess that would elevate us in dignity, it is a numbness we are only aware of afterward. As I was writing, I thought that there was no lasting happiness without prior awareness - and that this awareness, this lucidity, is necessarily linked to the 48-hour workweek. And that led me to emphasize the conquest of this lucidity. I don't know if I was right. Happiness, I have no doubt, is here and there. But I could not imagine describing it. This experience is foreign to me. And then, there are some individuals who have too strong a craving, a will, and a nostalgia for happiness ever to reach it. They always retain a bitter and passionate aftertaste, and that's the best they can hope for. Forget ourselves in order to be happy? No doubt. But do you think I am concerned with myself as much as I was a few years ago? I am 25 years old, with enough experience at this age (a lot of different experiences) and, I think, a clear awareness of my shortcomings. My universe, if I have one, is harsh and without concessions.” -Albert Camus (Book: Correspondence)

Adham Wanly (Egyptian, 1908-1959)

Making His Point by Malcom T. Liepke

"But between him and those grave and sober men, first bearded, then moustached, there was this difference, that his semen had never done any harm to anyone. So his link with his species was through his ascendants only, who were all dead, in the fond hope they had perpetuated themselves. But the better late than never thanks to which true men, true links, can acknowledge the error of their ways and hasten on to the next, was beyond the power of Macmann, to whom it sometimes seemed that he could grovel and wallow in his mortality until the end of time and not have done. And without going so far as that, he who has waited long enough will wait for ever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain. Perhaps he had come to that. And when (for example) you die, it is too late, you have been waiting too long, you are no longer sufficiently alive to be able to stop.” - Samuel Beckett, (Book: Malone Dies)

Charles Courtney Curran

PlayStation 2 adverts, (2001).