September 16
Even the most violent passions grant us rest now and then. Only vanity never leaves us in peace.
Maxims and Thoughts (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Even the most violent passions grant us rest now and then. Only vanity never leaves us in peace.
When something really angers you, you forget for a while how you look. Enthusiasm and infatuation share the same quality: they turn you wholly towards something else. At some point they are spent, and with them the restlessness subsides.
It is different with the question of how you come across. It has no object you could attain or lose, only an audience that never passes final judgement. A successful evening is not enough for it. On the way home you replay particular sentences and check whether one of them was too loud. Even when no one is there, this audience sits in the room with you.
What makes it tiresome above all is that it creeps into rest as well. You take a day off and notice that in your head you are already telling someone about it. You forgo recognition and are a little proud of forgoing it.
The moment when it falls silent can hardly be brought about. Sometimes you laugh at something so hard that you forget how your laugh sounds. Only afterwards do you notice that for a while you were no one in particular.
