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116

Wednesday, April 25, 1928

a form.  The most obvious example being the path of the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets.  Too, the seasons.  The growth of things from the soil.  It is difficult to realise that [[strikethrough]] an [[/strikethrough]] my experiences will only be incidents and that [[strikethrough]] nothing [[/strikethrough]] no one thing lasts forever.  I must content myself to the fact that it is futile, even wrong, to be sad that any happening [[strikethrough]] then [[/strikethrough]] is such an incident and therefore has an end.  Any [[?prolonging]], freed naturally, has no meaning, no place in the form.

The queerest thoughts I ever had came to me while I was taking the anesthetic.  The only reason that I think of them again is that once before while I was under gas.  This time as I kept taking the gas and ether I thought that real physical pain had some meaning and this meaning was a key to the meaning of love.  It seemed to be at an incomprehensible distance — comparable almost to Van Loon's explanation of eternity — and that every person who feels true physical pain (as I thought I was at that moment) comes a terribly minute [[strikethrough]] did [[/strikethrough]] bit nearer the ultimate, satisfactory answer.  It is probably a great deal of rot, but it is worth thinking about.

Do we live in the present so that we may have a past around which we may build dreams & idealising memories?  Is the present merely necessary for



117

Thursday, April 26, 1928

that retrospect which is the real life?  Is the present compable to pain–; [[strikethrough]] at [[/strikethrough]] when one experiences pain it is vivid and real and horrible in one way – it is absolutely absolving, enveloping, but when one looks at it in retrospect the value of this true unpleasantness is immeasurable, the enveloping quality is gone and one can think about it objectively – one can idealise this suffering until it is no longer suffering.  Is the present a parallel to pain.  Or are there as Wilder asks two lives "the present with its discontent or the retrospect with it's emotions"  My idea is not the same as his.  My question is if the present is only a reason for the retrospect, and is the retrospect therefore really life?

All of a sudden I have decided that Death cannot be really terrible, is not, in fact, something to be feared.  Before one was born he was not unhappy, and [[strikethrough]] now that [[/strikethrough]] so, since Death must be similar to this state, why do people fear it?  The idea of an after life seems to be purely an idea borne from the deep-seated conceit of man.

The question of love and of friendships with people – The meaning of life – being really useful – are all unanswered.  Being successful seems to be doing that which one wants to do, that which one