

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
Like Nietzsche, some of the most profound thoughts come to me when I was walking. For a while, I have attempted to figure out why that is precisely, but such a question still sparks my curiosity to this day. When I sit down with the intention of writing, there is a natural anticipation which arises out of its own will, which almost always prevents finer, more heartfelt thoughts to gush in and make themselves noticed. Such a pattern is always a cause for frustration if you are disposed to write, but any practiced writer can tell you that there are moments where the incapacity to do so overpowers your necessity to write. I find myself in a state where I am forcing myself to think, anxiously, impossibly, with the impassioned hope that the thought I desire to provoke grips my soul and at once equips me with the appropriate words to articulate it. More often than not, this doesn’t succeed as I would have intended, and leaves me with a feeling of small vexation.
Quite ironically, it is when my mind is stretching its legs without interference that it happens; the thought presents itself in a gleaming, sophisticated fashion and I am abruptly endowed with the construction and expression. As far as I know, I have never stopped thinking, for a long time I have thought about things to preposterous extents and for extensive periods of time, and I continue to do so. There is a sure madness about it, and I have grown restless more times than I can count as a consequence. To call it mere overthinking, though, does not satisfy. It is more like thinking over things that on the surface may seem insubstantial, but at an intramural level, are reasonably serpentine. There are people who overthink without harvesting new insights, then there are artists, poets, and philosophers who think things over and collect new jewels. Such treasures become refined paragons of excellence, gifts that the world could and will benefit from. I think that is where true, pure beauty emerges. At first glance, such thinkers seem like overthinkers who are enfeebled or diseased – and you could certainly make the case that they have an underlying affliction and darkness – but their brilliance lies in their madness, and to strip them of their blizzards is to render them inferior to the genius that bears fruit in the midst of their natural delirium.
When I’m taking the air by the ocean, an outlandish tranquility moves my emotion. I feel beset by a loss for words, yet in my speechlessness, my mind opens like a bud and blossoms, running uninterrupted and steady, an outpouring of glory, ecstasy and darkness intermingled together. There’s a profound and curious sense of escape, as if I got perforated by an arrow and blood leaked out the orifice. Likened to a leakage, a discharge of successive thoughts rush out, and I, the observer, find myself in a state of wondrous bewilderment. As I carry on with walking, puzzled and inquiring, there is no difficulty to be found, no blockage or alarm. The pandemonium that surrounds me is strangled by a flashing light, by a love that could only be expressed as transcendent, perfect, and melodious. The gleaming lights of nightfall are permeated by a rich vividness, like a painting strengthened by luminous whites clashing with the approaching darkness.
The feeling of being by yourself, in deep utter contemplation, fastened to experience itself, overcome by vision and insight, is an eternity in a moment. If anyone were to ask where my most abstruse thoughts come from, I would say they come from the most cavernous seas that impregnate my soul while walking down the promenade. That is one of the few instances I feel thoroughly at ease with myself, still like a mill-pond I prowl on my imagination and it yields… a stupor of knowledge that I am convinced is otherworldly. My doubts are dispelled, my convictions are buttressed by understanding, my fears are proved vain, my standing timely. Call it divine providence if you will.
If you’re earnest about writing, and you’re concerned with the profound and eternal, you should go on frequent walks, preferably in nature, and by yourself, journal and pen in hand, ready to think up and formulate. A thought strikes often when you least expect it and catches you by surprise. Those who carry some paper are always ready to jot it down. You should never miscalculate your capacity for thought, you will be pleasantly impressed with yourself when you find that you’re more expressive than you assumed. It’s simply that you never tried to actually write something eloquent, pregnant with meaning. Too concerned with perfection, you fail before you start. Thoughts are irregular at the start, no matter how heartfelt, they only shine after, when civilized by style. Write down something, anything! it doesn’t have to be great, but you have to write it down if you want to work out its merit. The profundity of a thought is ambiguous until it’s been enriched by revelation, it only assumes its lawful colors when the potential depth of the thought has been unearthed, ascertained, and consolidated.
In the words of Kafka, “Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”

“Substance is insufficient, circumstance is also vital. A bad manner ruins everything, even justice and reason. A good manner makes up for everything: it gilds a ‘no’, sweetens truth, and beautifies old age itself. How something is done plays a key role in all affairs, and a good manner is a winning trick. Graceful conduct is the chief ornament of life; it gets you out of any tight situation.”
“A great man’s conduct should not be petty. You should never go into minute details, especially with unpleasant things, because although it’s an advantage to notice everything casually, it isn’t to want to inquire into every last thing. You should normally act with a noble generality, which is a form of gallantry.”
You hear a lot of men nowadays insisting on what style and grace ought to look like, they talk of machismo, being an asshole, perhaps arrogant, apparently uninterested, selectively aloof. You hear men who’ve been terribly wounded in the past by some woman or other counsel against niceness, not to be a so-called pushover, a coward, a quaking mess. I will, therefore, attempt to insult your sensibilities by offering you a different perspective on the art of chivalry, as I believe most of these devices are nothing more than frangible outs to a deeper problem. Men who’ve had their heart broken move from one severity to another, from leniency to mercilessness, they cover up terror with undue savagery and believe in their hearts they’ve learned their lesson. They let pain dictate their future treatment, but they fail to puzzle it out by reason and thus also fail to be what they actually are. They first falsify their nature for a woman, then they get hurt, then they falsify themselves a second time, discover its partial utility and conclude that they have the answer. That’s not precisely how it works.
There is still a rancor of bad feeling underlying that sense of effrontery which at its heart is still frivolous. Even if women are responsive to its apparent allure, you know you’re lying to yourself – you do it not as a consequence of who you are, but because you want to safeguard what has already been ruptured. There’s no charm, no grace, no elegance in that. A waste of taste and worldliness that is far more arresting. Being polite and well-mannered is indicative of excellence, not weakness. The problem arises when there is no profundity of character to offset it, no charm, no nonchalance, no boldness. The notion that you need to be a perpetual asshole to women to disarm her is low-resolution thinking. A refined taste in speech, manner, and dress is a form of royalty, and lies at the height of a man well bred – presentable, clean, sharp and eloquent. Do not mistake niceness with good manners, for they are different things, and achieve different ends. There are many nice men, ostensibly civil, but they lack backbone and ingenuity; they fall short of being integral, all-embracing.
A man well-mannered must epitomize an element of urbaneness, who effortlessly consolidates his grace and firmness, who speaks persuasively yet saves his calmness, who reacts impassively yet tempers his urges. Judicious in his speech, he doesn’t betray all his cards, but delicately spurs on a woman’s need to talk about herself – and lets her do so. It is easy to counsel a man in machismo, and it is usually the same: nag her when she least expects it, humourise her insults to establish authority, sexualise her remarks, insinuate, and so forth. This is all well and good, and may prove effective in numerous situations, but what happens in between is pivotal. Counseling a man who isn’t socially calibrated will soak up this unseemly guidance and make poor use of it. Erroneous judgment, incongruous timing, impudent demeanor. Before you get ahead of yourself, you must lay the foundations; polish your taste, sophisticate your manner, hone your word, refashion your closet. Naturally, these amendments take time, but are far more worthwhile than merely becoming a graceless self-centered narcissist whose every word stinks of vulgarity. Some women find it appealing, but those aren’t the women of an honorable man. Elementally, man becomes chivalrous for himself, not for womanly appeal.
Most men have no sense of style, their taste is graceless, their judgment feeble. Even in our lenient complacency, we have grown uncivilized, like domesticated animals we succumb to transient urges and allow them to determine our exploits. The mob have no definite conception of beauty, they can hardly unravel its luster or abiding element. When you speak to them of grace, they don’t grasp what underlies it, the timeless and immortal soul that merges the divine with the material, the eternal with the perishable. They speak of courtesy, of respect, but even such pictures are muddled in hollow ideals, defiled by the ostentatious ignorance of the herd. They say one thing, and do another. They behave one way, and believe another. Their existence is a masterclass in hypocrisy – in their civility, they are the least civil of all. Argument is vain, opinion is cheap, truth is whatever they feel at any given moment. Truly, we have become so profoundly hampered by passion that no truth could ever stand the test of time in our books.
In my head, I have for a while envisioned many a paradise, but later came to the modest realization that no words will ever suffice to precisely articulate this picture. Nonetheless, I will attempt to give it depth for your own meditation; a paradise in solitude is one where the beauty of love finds itself binded by the grace of one’s own cultivation, overlooking a boundless ocean of promise, uncertainty, and choice, where sublime food is being relished in the mediterranean tropical, where fine ladies are wedged to smirking gentlemen puffing cigarette, where passageways are occupied by tapering eating houses and stalls of lively exotic fruits, where antiquated balconies are engaged by bracing couples gloating over red wine, eating indelible carbonara, making love at the converging nightfall. One man or other poking fun at life’s odds, speeding down the highway in a cloud of smoke, tickling death itself, wagering existence. Beauty is terrifying, it’s an arbiter that casts a shadow on the dull, for they have nothing to show for it and are at once eclipsed by its eternal brilliance.
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