The 128 most classic philosophical essays in the world

Chapter 31 Life and Creation

[France] Romain Rolland
Who can explain the mysterious catharsis?Therein lies the meaning of all life—in the stimulus to create.

If life is a bow, then dreams are the strings of the bow.But where is the archer?
I have seen some beautiful bows, made of tough wood, smooth without a trace of knots, harmonious and elegant like the eyebrows of gods, but they are useless.

I've seen strings about to vibrate, like guts drawn from turbulent entrails, trembling in the silence.They're tense, they're about to chime... They're going to shoot silver arrows - the note - to ripple on the lake of air, but what are they waiting for?Finally relax.As a result, no one will ever hear that string of beautiful notes.

The trembling is silent, and the arrows are scattered; when will the archers come to twist their bows?

He came early to put his bow on my dream.I can hardly remember a time when I eluded him, God only knows how I dreamed!My whole life is a dream, I dream my love, my actions and my thoughts.When I'm sleepless at night, when I'm daydreaming, the Shehai Lasarte of my mind unties the spinning rod.In her haste to tell the story, the threads of her dreams were disturbed, my bow fell to the side of the spinning rod, and the archer--my master--slept.But even in sleep he didn't relax me, I lay close to him.

I feel like the bow, his hand on my smooth wood.That plump hand, those slender and soft fingers, they caress with their tender skin a string that sings in the dark night.I let my tremors merge with those of his body, trembling, waiting for the moment of awakening, when I would be drawn into his arms by the holy archer.

All us living beings are in his hands; mind and body, man, beast, elements—water and fire—air and resin—everything that is alive... what is there to fear in existence!To live, you must act.Where are you, archer, I call to you, the bow of life is at your feet.Bend down and pick me up!Put the arrow on my bowstring and shoot!
My arrows whizzed away like erratic wings.The archer moved his hand back and put it on his shoulder. While watching the flying arrows disappearing into the distance, he watched the bowstring that had been shot gradually return from trembling to stillness.

Who can explain the mysterious catharsis?Therein lies the meaning of all life—in the stimulus to create.

Living in this state of stimulation is the common expectation of all things.I have often observed the strange sleeps of our little brethren, the beasts and plants—the trees imprisoned in their stalks, the dreaming ruminants, the sleepwalking horses, the creatures who spend their lives in ignorance.And I felt in them an involuntary intelligence, not without some glimmer of gloom, of the thought that was about to form: "When is it time to act?"

The twilight faded.They're asleep again, tired and resigned... "Not yet." We have to wait.

We've been waiting, us humans.The time has finally come.

But with some, the Angel of Creation stands only at the door; with others, he enters, touching them with his foot: "Wake up! Go forward!"

We jumped up: let's go!

I survive because I create.The first movement of life is creation.A newborn boy sheds a few drops of semen as soon as he emerges from his mother's womb.Everything is a seed, body and mind.Every sound thought is the husk of a plant seed, spreading the life-giving pollen.The Creator is not an organized worker who works six days and rests on the Sabbath.The Sabbath is the Lord's Day, the great Creation Day of the Creator.The Creator knows no other day.If he ceased to create, even for a moment, he would die.Because "emptiness" is always waiting for him with open jaws... jawbone, swallow it, and keep silent!The giant sowers scatter their seeds like streaming sunlight; and each tiny seed that falls is like another sun.Pour it out, future harvest, no matter physical or spiritual!Mind or body, it is the same source of life anyway.

"My immortal daughters, Leuctra and Mantinia..." I give birth to my thoughts and actions as the fruit of my body... Eternally give flesh and blood to words... This is my grape juice, as the harvest The grapes are stamped out by the workers in vats with their feet.

Therefore, I have been creating...

Heart mark notes
Don't you think that's what human beings are like: human beings dig a small pool outside the torrent of life, stagnate in it, and die in it, but this stagnation, this corruption, we call survival.In other words, we want a kind of permanence, we want the pleasure to never cease, and as a result, everything rots and stinks very quickly.This kind of life is just a rotten life.

Real life is like a river, constantly moving, always seeking, exploring, advancing, overflowing the banks, and getting into every crevice.Life has no walls, no obstacles, no rests, and it moves completely with the rhythm of life, advancing, exploring, and exploding all the time. Only in this way can life be alive and happy, because life keeps up with its own rhythm—— create.

(End of this chapter)