Zagajewski Clip #2 (1/11/20)

Systems have turned us into slaves, dwarfs. The disinterested contemplation of life is a different matter, as for example in Paul Claudel’s “Second Ode,” where the author exclaims, “Oh Credo full of things seen and unseen.” That’s finally all that counts: disinterested contemplation of the world, brimming with admiration or revulsion, or both together. Systems don’t permit disinterested contemplation: they’re sieves, they sift, segregate, eliminate, smooth, simplify, diminish. Systems are like mnemonic devices, ideal for accelerated evening courses … A person who masters any one of them—it demands just a few months of intensive cramming—will be liberated from true knowledge, from authentic, free, gleeful erudition open to reality, but open as well to dozens of varied traditions, hundreds of different painters, composers, writers, united by nothing, almost, except perhaps their unconditional refusal to be tidied within a single system. Each sought truth at first hand, painfully, in joy and disappointment, in depression and inspiration, and each paid a different price for this quest. Some of them met, even became friends, such as Delacroix and Chopin; some knew nothing about each other and still don’t. Those who seek only peaceful contemplation of the world don’t form creative societies, don’t carry membership cards. They don’t want theoretical justification for their works. In his splendid poem on Chopin, Gottfried Benn says, “When Delacroix pronounced his theory, he grew anxious, / since he had no way of justifying nocturnes.” It’s extraordinary: Justifying nocturnes! Justifying ballades!