Alex's Blog

"Man knows and thinks this tragic ambivalence which the animal and plant merely undergo. A new paradox is thereby introduced into his destiny.  'Rational animal,' 'thinking reed,' he escapes from his natural condition without, however freeing himself from it. He is still a part of this world of which he is a consciousness. He asserts himself as a pure internality against which no external power can take hold, and he also experiences himself as a thing crushed by the dark weight of other things. At every moment he can grasp the non- temporal truth of his existence. But between the past which no longer is and the future which is not yet , this moment when he exists is nothing. This privilege, which he alone possesses, of being a sovereign and unique subject admits a universe of objects, is what he shares with all his fellow- men. In turn an object for others, he is nothing more than an individual in the collectivity on which he depends."

VIA Simone De Beauvoir