There are people who have said to me, “My happiness lies in this very
hurly-burly, this brutish labor, this frantic agitation which you
spurn. Outside this turmoil of business and society, I am bored. I need
it. I need it in order to divert my thoughts.”
No doubt! No doubt! But what have you done with your life that it has
become necessary to divert your thoughts? What have you made of your
past, what do you hope from your future when this alcohol, this opium,
has become necessary to you?
You must understand me, there is no question, if you are built as an
athlete, of letting your muscles deteriorate. There is no question,
if you have a great thirst for controversy, a natural aptitude for
struggle, of letting that thirst go unsatisfied, that aptitude
uncultivated. The question is simply one of harmoniously employing all
these fine gifts, of enriching yourself with those real treasures the
universe bestows on those who wish to take them, and not of wearing out
your radiant strength in the labors of a street-porter, a galley-slave
or an executioner.
Here is a man who says to me: “My happiness! My happiness! But it
consists in never thinking of my soul.” What a sad thing! And how
gravely one must have offended others and one’s own self to have
reached that point!
For where shall he who loves torment, passionate restlessness,
uncertainty, and remorse discover these terrible blessings if it is not
in the depths of his own hateful ego?