Cattiva Fede

That God does not exist, I cannot deny—that my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget.

The world exists in nine thousand different tremors of sound, and each thread sprouts from the core of my heart. Pluck a string, and I vibrate; touch precious lips to the mouth of a flute, and I will soar with every note it bids me make, and the world will follow in my step. A single finger, touched to a breath of air, influences the world. Every man is a man of himself; every man is free; and yet, every man is, essentially, nothing. These are truths that I know, truths that man has filled me with. I can ignore them no more than I can ignore the steady thud of sound in my chest, this composition that mocks the heartbeat of one who is alive. Every man is free, but I am not. I am slave to the wishes and creations of mankind, chattel to their imaginations and their inventions.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

I suffer from my knowledge, suffer from that which was never meant to be known by one with consciousness, by one with reality and truth and pain. Blissfully would I exist beneath the blinders of mortals, ignorant to the truths of the gods and the lack thereof. Organs of man are comprised of the notes of geniuses; their lifeblood, the splatters of color created by the most exceptional of painters. This skeleton, this skin, designed by the classic masters of sculpture, and my mind defined by the thoughts of every brilliant man to grace the surface of this world. Their brilliance lives on through myself, surviving in the minds of the living through this curse of nonexistent gods.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

I have not always known what it was that characterized my existence. For years, hope lay within me that it was I who were the genius, I who bore the mark of majesty. Not until I was cut did I discover the truth; not until that brilliant blade of truth sliced through marble-toned skin, did I realize my own life was a fallacy. I peered within the slice of skin that rendered no pain, tenuous fingers pressing the folds of skin until they fell apart, and beneath that stony layer did I discover a vast array of color, swirling together and presenting to me, with every thud of music within my chest--a thud I had previously mistaken for a heartbeat--did the colors form themselves into a different work of perfection, sometimes a work of old, sometimes a work of recent years, and sometimes a work of a master yet to come. It was that day that I abandoned hope of life and love; it was that day that I accepted the misfortune of my world, and resigned myself to an eternity of keeping record of all the genius I could never be part of.

I was escaping from Nature and at last becoming myself, that Other whom I was aspiring to be in the eyes of others.

The result of these realities is to be in the midst of a constant concert, a constant museum tour, a constant lecture. Never can I escape the honesty and the beauty and the perfection of that which is my existence, for how can one escape oneself? Never am I lonely; what is there to miss, when everything good within the world is caught up within myself? Songs and poetry dedicated to love and the lack thereof echo through my soul, teaching me everything I do not know, showing me what it is to have what I can never have, and slowly obliterating my desire for it. I am full of that which every human wishes to feel; I am suffocated beneath the weight of the emotion that permeates the creations which fill my soul--which, in truth, are my soul.

Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this city and myself. When you suddenly realize it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift... that’s nausea.

Do not make the mistake of assuming I requested this gift--if truly one may call it such. I stagger beneath its burden, and wish only to lose it. It was given without even a knowledge of its gift, and never once have I been thankful for this never-ending parade of immaculate inventions. And yet, this is a parade which does some good—it gives such an elegance to misfortune! I am very tired, and wish only to communicate this to those who hover above the heads of men and act as their gods and as their scapegoats. What god hears my silent prayers? What god pities my fate? What god comprehends the vast unjustness that has been dealt me, by forcing me to lead this so-called life in which only one thought is infallible: I will never know what it is to have a thought all my own. Each word that forms itself in my mind, each combination of words, has been previously formed by another. I speak only the words of those who created me, by desiring foolish immortality.

As Tithonus, in Tennyson’s words: “I asked thee, ‘Give me immortality.’ Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, like wealthy men who care not how they give...” I cry, as did Tithonus, “Let me go: take back thy gift!” But they shall not release me, for how can they release one who bears such knowledge as to disprove their existence entirely?