“Man grows wings in melancholy, not in order to enjoy the world, but in order to be alone. What is the meaning of loneliness in melancholy? Isn’t it related to the feeling of interior and exterior infinity? … The interior infinitude and vagueness of melancholy, not to be confused with the fecund infinity of love, demands a space whose borders are ungraspable…. Melancholy detachment removes man from his natural surroundings. His outlook on infinity shows him to be lonely and foresaken. The sharper our consciousness of the world’s infinity, the more acute our awareness of our own finitude. In some states this awareness is painfully depressing, but in melancholy it is less tormenting and sometimes even rather voluptuous.”
E M Cioran (1934) On the Heights of Despair
Easter Greetings
