DREAM
“I live in my dreams… Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That’s the difference.” - Hermann Hesse
His book, Demian, came up in conversation last night. It was such an important book for me at one time in my life, and now I remember why. There is no one like Hermann Hesse.
Wish I had more time to add some thoughts on this book. Its Jungian, Nietzschean, coming-of-age, and a literary masterpiece that won Hesse the Nobel Prize in 1946. Here are some highlights that will not spoil the story, in case you’d like to read it.
P.S. I do believe that two people can share the same dream. Case in point: this room. I have dreamt of it. Someone else dreamt of it, and then turned it into a reality too. That’s the difference here.
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“The things we see are the same things that are within us. There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself. You can be happy that way. But once you know the other interpretation you no longer have the choice of following the crowd.”
“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.”
“Genuine communion,” said Demian, “is a beautiful thing. But what we see flourishing everywhere is nothing of the kind…The community spirit at present is only a manifestation of the herd instinct. Men fly into each other’s arms because they are afraid of each other…”
“You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!”
“Each man had only one genuine vocation- to find the way to himself. He might end up as a poet or madman, a prophet or criminal- that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny, not an arbitrary one, and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness.”
“Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.”
“Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak surrender to them, don’t ask first whether it’s permitted or would please your teachers or father, or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that.”
“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.”
“Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.”
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