Page 148 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 4 #3

worst, "3:27 AM."

I just shook my head. Another nyght lost. I debated finding another old movie but I knew
it was pointless. As vain as debating the value of pi at the sixteen decimal place. I sat in silence
until Princess had fallen asleep again.

I reached for My Companion, set up her stand, and turned her on. She burst to life. I had
to turn my eyes away. The brightness was overpowering. The pain of the sudden burst of light
against defenseless eyes screamed. Slowly, I opened my eyes a second and then a third time. I
turned my face away and then slowly opened them while my face was turned away. Finally, I
could look at the screen. Finally.
Stylus in hand, I opened Note Anywhere and began to write. Anything. Seemingly ran-
dom, arbitrary words. And then, I began repeating the phrase from the end of the interview:
"the deafening emptiness of the Angst."

"...sadness that is the twine, the thread, that binds my experience together. To be in the world
authentically evokes sadness.... "
Why is sadness the twine? Why did I say that? What was the logic?

"So, Nietzsche wasn't influenced by Schopenhauer. He was reacting to his belief that
Schopenhauer's understanding of what it means to be human is fundamentally flawed. Scratch
him any way you want but in the end Schopenhauer is a descendant of Leibniz and Aristotle and
not Plato. It wasn't "The World as Will and Idea." It was "The World as Passion and Reason"
and for Nietzsche, it wasn't about reason or power or intellect. It was about passion. Defiance.
Rebellion. Wille zur Macht. The passion to create. "
Thoth suddenly was sitting at my feet. "What do you want, Old Man?" He said something
I didn't fully understand and then jumped up on the other couch, curled up with his back turned
to me and was asleep. "I guess that says it all. At least one of us will get some sleep tonyght.

Why did I respond to Francois with those words? Why is sadness the thread that binds
my experience together?

Angst. The reaction to Thrownness. Sadness is inseparable from Thrownness because
1
sadness is the essence of Angst. It is the sadness that engenders fear and terror and depression.
2
The inability to live with the presence of sadness engenders denial of death. Das Man. The
world of despair. The world where the pretense of absolute truth is used to mitigate the reality
of the meaninglessness and futility of life and love.
A sadness so profound and so deep that how one responds to that confrontation with
death shapes the entirety of one's life. That I know. But isn't Sorge the end of Angst? The trans-
3
formation of Angst into care, concern, love - doesn't that mitigate sadness or at least push it
away for a moment? How can sadness and love exist together - how can I experience both the
love of that which exists before my eyes and sadness?

No. To be in the world authentically is to confront death as 'one's own most possibility'
every moment of one's life. That was my mistake - I had failed to see that the confrontation
doesn't end. As long as the confrontation continues, Angst is never diminished. If the confronta-
tion is without end, then Sorge is as transient and fleeting as my own being in the world. How I
confront the possibility of death at every moment either gives life to or takes life from Sorge. So,

148 | Last Breath of Summer