Pessimism Of The Spirit; Optimism

Before Puberty The Child's Personality Has Not Yet Formed And It Is Easier To Guide Its Life And Make It Acquire Specific Habits Of Order, Discipline, And Work.

How Many Times Have I Wondered If It Is Really Possible To Forge Links With A Mass Of People When One Has Never Had Strong Feelings For Anyone, Not Even One's Own Parents: If It Is Possible To Have A Collectivity When One Has Not Been Deeply Loved Oneself By Individual Human Creatures. Hasn't This Had Some Effect On My Life As A Militant--has It Not Tended To Make Me Sterile And Reduce My Quality As A Revolutionary By Making Everything A Matter Of Pure Intellect, Of Pure Mathematical Calculation?

The Starting-point Of Critical Elaboration Is The Consciousness Of What One Really Is, And Is 'knowing Thyself'as A Product Of The Historical Processes To Date, Which Has Deposited In You An Infinity Of Traces, Without Leaving An Inventory.

This Is Really The Common Mentality Of Prisoners: They Read With Great Attention All The Articles That Deal With Illnesses And Send Away For Treatises And "be Your Own Doctor" Or "emergency Treatments" And End Up By Discovering That They Have At Least 300 Or 400 Illnesses, Whose Symptoms They Are Experiencing.

Is It Better To Work Out Consciously And Critically One's Own Conception Of The World And Thus, In Connection With The Labours Of One's Own Brain, Choose One's Sphere Of Activity, Take An Active Part In The Creation Of The History Of The World, Be One's Own Guide, Refusing To Accept Passively And Supinely From Outside The Moulding Of One' Own Personality?