Saturday, January 21, 2012

A greater distance

Reading the old writers, one is constantly struck by the simplicity of their moral attitudes. We seem such craven, complex characters by comparison. Yet were they so simple? Of course not. Less tormented explorers of the ego, perhaps; they knew themselves at a greater distance.

In old music one hears a greater distance between the self and the song.

‘The Thou is older than the I.’—Nietzsche

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