More "Clips" from Zagajewski



Re the painter/writer Jozef Czapski:
He had many friends, who loved and admired him unreservedly to the end. He was in essence, though, a solitary man. He was my friend and master.

The master of my not-knowing. And what is not-knowing but thought?
Re an "inner life":
Contemporary mass culture, entertaining and at times harmless as it may be, is marked by its complete ignorance of the inner life. Not only can it not create this life; it drains it, corrodes it, undermines it. Science, caught up in other problems, likewise neglects it. Thus only a few artists, philosophers, and theologians are left to defend this fragile, besieged fortress.

Defending the spiritual life is not merely a sop thrown to the radical aesthetes. I see the spiritual life, the inner voice that speaks to us, or perhaps only whispers, in Polish, English, Russian, or Greek, as the mainstay and foundation of our freedom, the indispensable territory of reflection and independence shielding us from the mighty blows and temptations of modern life.
 

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