"There is nothing more lonely than eternity. And nothing is more cozy for us than to be a human being. This indeed is another contradiction: How can man keep the bonds of his humanness and still venture gladly and purposefully into the absolute loneliness of eternity?"

u/thisgreatusername 2018-12-21 19:49 UTC 9 points

--From THE FIRE FROM WITHIN

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"I knew then with total certainty the reason for my sadness. It was a recurrent feeling with me, one that I would always forget until I again realized the same thing: the puniness of humanity against the immensity of that thing-in-itself which I had seen reflected in the mirror.

'Human beings are truly nothing, don Juan,' I said.

'I know exactly what you're thinking,' he said. 'Sure, we're nothing, but that's exactly what makes it the ultimate challenge; that we nothings could actually face the loneliness of eternity.'

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https://www.federaljack.com/ebooks/Castenada/sites/rarecloud.com/cc_html/cc_html_07/tffw06.html

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5 Comments

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u/suicidsally 2 points 2019-01-11 03:52

"The only thing that soothes those who journey into the unknown is oblivion," he said. "What a relief to be in the ordinary world!" (Fire, 281)

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u/thisgreatusername 1 points 2019-01-12 01:35

"oblivion" obliterates the difficulty of the unknown (i.e. absolute loneliness of eternity)?

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u/suicidsally 1 points 2019-01-12 03:23

I was looking for a better quote, but I couldn't find it. "Oblivion" is defined (somewhere) as the world as we know it as an average man, before power gets a hold of us, before we know there is a separate reality, if you will.

Sometimes we may yearn for that "comfortable" position, exactly because there is an immensity out there.

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u/thisgreatusername 1 points 2019-01-15 21:31

I interpreted oblivion as "no recollection/no memory."

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u/suicidsally 1 points 2019-01-16 00:27

I think "oblivion," in Castaneda terms, should be read as "cozy".

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