I am faithless and thus may not be happy, because a man who risks to be afraid that his life is an absurd wandering towards a sure death cannot be happy. I received in inheritance neither god, nor a given spot on earth from where I can draw the attention of a god: no one either legated me the well disguised fury of the skeptic, the Sioux guiles of the rationalist or the burning innocence of the atheist. So I dare not throw the stone neither at the one who believes in things which inspire me only doubt, nor at the one who cultivates his doubt as if it was not, just as well, surrounded with darkness. This stone would hit me myself because I am well certain about one thing: the need of consolation that dwells within the human being is impossible to satisfy.

As for me, I track consolation as the hunter tracks his game. Everywhere I believe to perceive it in the forest, I shoot. Often I hit only air but, once from time to time, a prey falls to my feet. And, as I know that consolation lasts only the time of a passing wind at the top of a tree, I hurry to seize my victim.

What do I hold then in my arms?

Since I am solitary: a loved woman or an unfortunate travelling companion.

Since I am a poet: a bow (arc) of words which inspires me joy and dismay when I brace it.

Since I am prisoner: a sudden glimpse of freedom.

Since I am threatened of death: an alive and very warm animal, a heart that beats sarcastically.

Since I am threatened by the sea: a cliff of very hard granite.

But there are also consolations which come to me without being invited and which fill my room of obnoxious whispers:

I am your pleasure - love them all!

I am your talent - make as much misuse as of yourself!

I am your desire of delight - only live the gourmets!

I am your solitude - despise Man! I am your longing for death - then cut!

The razor's edge is very thin. I see my life threatened by two dangers: by the hungry mouths of greed, and by the bitterness of misery that feeds on itself. But I hold to refuse to choose between the orgy and the asceticism, even if for that I have to undergo the torture of being grilled by my desires. For me it is not enough to know that, because we are not free of our acts, everything is excusable. For what I search is not an excuse for my life but the exact opposite of an excuse: forgiveness. The idea comes to me finally that any consolation not taking into account my freedom is misleading, being only the reflection of my despair. Indeed, when my despair says to me: lose confidence, for every day is only an armistice between two nights, the false consolation shouts to me: Hope! because every night is only an armistice between two days.

But humanity should just make up a consolation in the form of witticism: we need a consolation which illuminates. And the one who wishes to become bad, that is to become a man who acts as if any action was defendable, must have at least the kindness to notice it when he succeeds.

Nobody can enumerate all the cases where consolation is a necessity. Nobody knows when will twilight come, and life is not a problem which can be resolved by dividing the light by the darkness and the days by the nights, it is an unpredictable journey between places which do not exist. I can, for example, walk along the shore and suddenly feel the horrifying challenge which the eternity throws to my existence in the perpetual motion of the sea and in the perpetual flight of the winds. What becomes of time then, other than a consolation for the fact that nothing which is human lasts - and what a miserable consolation, that enriches only the Swiss!

I can remain sat in front of the fireplace in the room the least the exposed to danger and suddenly feel death encircling me. It is in the firelight, in all the sharp objects which surround me, in the weight of the roof and in the mass of the walls, It is in the water, in the snow, in the heat and in my blood. What becomes then the human feeling of security if not the consolation for the fact that death is the closest thing there is to life - and what a miserable consolation, that only reminds us what it's supposed to make us forget!

I can fill all my blank pages with the most beautiful combinations of words that my mind can figure. Given that I try to make sure that my life is not absurd and that I am not alone on earth, I collect all these words in a book and I offer it to the world. In return, this one gives me wealth, glory, and silence. But what may I indeed make of this money and what pleasure may I get from contributing to the progress of literature - I wish only what I shall not have: confirmation of the fact that my words touched the heart of the world. What becomes then my talent if not the consolation for the fact that I am alone - but what a dreadful consolation, which simply makes me feel my solitude five times as hardly!

I can see freedom embodied in an animal that quickly crosses a clearing, and hear a voice that whispers: live simply, take what you wish and be not afraid of laws! But what is this good advice if not a consolation for the fact that freedom does not exist - and what a merciless consolation for the one who becomes aware that the human being has to put millions of years to become a lizard!

To finish, I can realize that this earth is a common grave in which king Salomon, Ophelia and Himmler rest side by side. I can conclude from it that the executioner and the unfortunate enjoy the same death as the wise, and that death can be likened for us to a consolation for a missed life. But what an atrocious consolation for the one who would like to see in life a consolation for death!

I do not possess a philosophy in which I can move as the fish in clear water or the bird in the sky. All that I possess is a duel, and this duel is engaged every minute of my life between the false consolations, which are only increasing my impotence and making more profound my despair, and the true, which lead me towards a temporary liberation. Maybe I should say: the true one because, to tell the truth, there exists for me only a single consolation which is real, the one who says to me that I am a free man, an inviolable individual, a sovereign being inside its limits. But freedom begins in slavery and the sovereignty by the dependence. The surest sign of my servitude is my fear of living. The definitive sign of my freedom is the fact that my fear leaves place to the serene joy of independence. It looks like I need dependence to be finally able to know the consolation of being a free man, and it is certainly true. In the light of my acts, I notice that all my life seems to have aimed at making my own misfortune. What should bring me freedom brings me the slavery and stones in place of bread.

Other men have other masters. As for me, my talent makes me a slave to the point of not daring to use it, for fear of having lost him it. Furthermore, I am so much a slave to my name that I hardly dare to write a line, for fear of damaging it. And, when the depression arrives finally, I am also its slave. My biggest desire is to retain it, my biggest pleasure is to feel that all that I was worth laid in what I believe to have lost: the capacity to create beauty from my despair, from my disgust and from my weaknesses. With a bitter enjoyment, I wish to see my house collapsing and see myself buried under the snow of forgetfulness. But depression is a Russian doll and, in the last doll, there are a knife, a razor blade, a poison, a deep water and a jump in a big hole. I eventually become the slave of all these instruments of death. They follow me as dogs, unless the dog is me. And it seems to me to understand that suicide is the only proof of the human freedom.

But, coming from an unsuspected direction, there comes the miracle of liberation. It can occur on the shore, and the same eternity which, moments from now, aroused my dismay is now the witness of my entry into freedom. Of what thus consists this miracle? Simply in the sudden discovery that nobody, no power, no human being, has the right to express such requirements from me that my desire to live comes to languish. Because if this desire does not exist, what can then exist?

Because I am by the sea, I can learn from the sea. Nobody has the right to require from the sea that it carry all the boats, or of the wind that it inflates perpetually all the sails. Also, nobody has the right to require from me that my life consist in being prisoner of certain functions. For me, it is not the duty above all but: the life above all. Just like other men, I have to be entitled to moments when I can step to the side and feel that I am not only a part of this mass that we call the global population, but also an autonomous unit.

It is only in such moments that I can be free towards all the facts of the life which, previously, caused my despair. I can recognize that the sea and the wind will not miss to survive me and that the eternity cares little about me. But who asks me to care about eternity? My life is short only if I place it on the block of time. The possibilities of my life are limited only if I count the number of words or the number of books to which I shall have the time to give birth before dying. But who asks me to count? Time is not the appropriate standard for life. In truth, time is a worthless measuring tool because it reaches only the advanced works of my life.

But all that happens to me of importance and all that gives my life its magnificent contents: meeting a loved being, a caress on the skin, help at the critical moment, the spectacle of the moonlight, a sea faring by sails, the joy given to a child, the shudder in front of beauty, all this takes place totally outside of time. Because it doesn't much matter that I meet beauty for one second or for one hundred years. Not only is bliss situated outside time but it denies any relation between this one and life.

So I lift from my shoulders the burden of time and, at the same time, that of the performances that are required from me. My life is not something that we have to measure. Neither the jump of the deer nor the sunrise are performances. Neither is a human life a performance, but something which grows and tries to reach perfection. And whatever is perfect does not accomplish out performances: what is perfect works its way quietly. It is absurd to claim that the sea is made to carry(wear) armadas and dolphins. Certainly, it does - but it keeps its freedom. It is also absurd to claim that the man is made for anything other than to live. Certainly, he furnishes machines and he writes books, but he could just as well make otherwise. What matters is that he do what does freely and in full consciousness of the fact that, like any other detail in existence, he is an end in itself. He rests in himself as a stone upon the sand. I can even free myself from the power of death. It is true that I cannot release myself from the idea that death walks follows my steps and even less deny its reality. But I can reduce to nothingness the threat which it constitutes by dispensing me from hanging my life on supports so precarious as time and glory.

On the other hand, it is not in my power to remain perpetually turned to the sea and to compare its freedom with mine. The moment will come when I shall have to turn around towards the earth and face the organizers of the oppression whose a victim I am. What I shall then be forced to recognize, it is that Man shaped his life in forms which, at least seemingly, are stronger than him. Even with my quite recent freedom I may not break them, I may only sigh under their weight. On the other hand, among the requirements which press on Man, I can see which ones are absurd and which are inevitable. According to me, a sort of freedom is lost for ever or for a long time. It is the freedom which comes from the capacity to have a proper element. The fish possesses his, as well as the bird and the ground animal. Thoreau still had the forest of Walden - but where is now the forest where the human being can prove that it is possible to live free from the rigid forms of society?

I am forced to answer: nowhere. If I want to live free, I have at the moment to do it inside these forms. The world is thus stronger than me. To its power I have nothing to oppose but myself - but, from a certain view, it is considerable. Because as long as I do not allow myself to be crushed by the numbers, I am also a power. And my power is redoubtable as long as I may set the strength of my words against that of the world, because the one who builds prisons expresses himself less well than the one who builds freedom. But my power will have no limits the day I have nothing but silence to defend my immunity, because no axe have a hold on the living silence.

Such is my only consolation. I know that relapses into despair will be numerous and deep, but the memory of the miracle of the liberation carries me as a wing towards a purpose which makes me dizzy: a consolation which is more than a consolation and bigger than a philosophy, that is a reason for living.

Stig Dagerman (1923 - 1954)