Friday, November 4, 2005

fires on the plain - shohei ooka

"After all, people live only because they have no reason to die." (229)

"People seem unwilling to admit this principle of chance.  Our spirits are not strong enough to stand the idea of life being a mere succession of chances -- the idea, that is, of infinity.  Each of us in his individual existence, which is contained between the chance of his birth and the chance of his death, identifies those few incidents that have arisen through what he styles his 'will';  and the thing that emerges consistently from this he calls his 'character' or again his 'life'.  Thus we contrive to comfort ourselves;  there is, in fact, no other way for us to think." (233-234)

"Maybe this, too, is nothing but illusion.  Yet I cannot doubt all my feelings.  Recollection is itself a type of experience -- and who can say that I am not alive?  Even though I can believe no one else, I still have faith in myself..." (240)

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