How can we fight unhappiness? By struggling with ourselves, for unhappiness comes from within, not from without. If we could constantly remind ourselves that everything is nothing but a reflection in our consciousness, more or less sharp, depending on the acuity of our senses, we could then attain a state of lucidity in which reality would resume its true proportions. We cannot aspire to happiness, only to less unhappiness.
To live in despair is a mark of great endurance, whereas to grow dull and stupid after a great unhappiness is a mark of deficiency. Self-control and sustained inner effort are required in order to diminish unhappiness. All efforts to attain happiness, on the other hand, are entirely futile. You cannot retrace your steps once you’ve taken the path to unhappiness; it is the path of no return. From being happy, one can become unhappy, so there are more unpleasant surprises in happiness than in unhappiness. The world seems right to us when we are happy; when unhappy, we wish the world were anything but what it is. Though fully aware that the source of unhappiness is in us, we nevertheless turn a personal defect into a metaphysical deficiency.
Unhappiness will never be sufficiently generous to acknowledge its own darkness in the world. Substituting for our subjective plight an objective one, we hope to lighten our burden and avoid the reproaches which we should in fact address to ourselves. But such objectification actually deepens our unhappiness and, presenting it as cosmic fatality, shuts off any possibility of lessening it or of making it more bearable.
The discipline of unhappiness causes less anxiety and fewer painful surprises; it abates agony and confines suffering. It is a disguise for an inner drama, the discreet mask of agony.
Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
To live in despair is a mark of great endurance, whereas to grow dull and stupid after a great unhappiness is a mark of deficiency. Self-control and sustained inner effort are required in order to diminish unhappiness. All efforts to attain happiness, on the other hand, are entirely futile. You cannot retrace your steps once you’ve taken the path to unhappiness; it is the path of no return. From being happy, one can become unhappy, so there are more unpleasant surprises in happiness than in unhappiness. The world seems right to us when we are happy; when unhappy, we wish the world were anything but what it is. Though fully aware that the source of unhappiness is in us, we nevertheless turn a personal defect into a metaphysical deficiency.
Unhappiness will never be sufficiently generous to acknowledge its own darkness in the world. Substituting for our subjective plight an objective one, we hope to lighten our burden and avoid the reproaches which we should in fact address to ourselves. But such objectification actually deepens our unhappiness and, presenting it as cosmic fatality, shuts off any possibility of lessening it or of making it more bearable.
The discipline of unhappiness causes less anxiety and fewer painful surprises; it abates agony and confines suffering. It is a disguise for an inner drama, the discreet mask of agony.
Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
