I.
“But you don’t know Life,” they are always saying.
I wonder what it is they mean?
They mean humanity and the urge of it:
In the beginning and in the end the soul’s longing to be known, to know itself, and to know others;
And that means, in the beginning and in the end, the quest for love;
It is the ideal of love and the finding of it;
And the magic of it and the drain of disillusionment;
And the luxury of sorrow and the voluptuousness of suffering;
And the vacuum that is beyond death;
And the conviction that ideals are better than reality;
And the decision to live for “art”;
And the pull to new love ...
And the discovery that love is enslavement;
And the breaking from it;
And the courage to contain life;
And the emancipation from something;
And the complacency of first freedom;
And the emptiness of it;
And the pull to new love ...
And the discovery that rapture is not relived;
And the conviction that passion is not love;
And the dedication to “the spiritual”;
And the pull to new love ...
And the deepest agony, which is unrequited love;
And the realization of people;
And the discovery that the world is wrong;
And the glory of rebellion;
And the emancipation for something;
And the pull to new love ...
And the birth of cynicism;
And the conviction that rebellion is futile;
And the discovery of one’s self;
And the dedication to one’s self;
And the discovery that one’s self is not big enough;
And the pull to new love ...
And the knowledge that love includes passion;
And the sense of rich growing;
And the hope of sharing growth;
And the longing to be known;
And the relinquishing of that longing;
And the discovery that perfection does not last;
And the sufficiency of self-direction;
And the completeness of freedom;
And the longing to know the human soul;
And the pull to new love ...
And the relinquishing of that longing;
And the discovery of the peace that is in nature;
And the realization of the unimportance of man;
And the knowledge that only great moments are attainable;
And the hatred of consummations;
And the realization of truths too late to act upon them;
And the acceptance of substitutes;
And the pull to new love ...
And every human being knows these things.