Dancing in the Water of Life (The Journals of Thomas Merton Book 5)

by Thomas Merton

A long way from that: I still love recognition and need to preach, so that I will believe in my own message, and believing that, will believe in myself–or at least consent to find myself acceptable for a little while.

Basically I think the root of it all is the blind animosity of the rich and the greedy, influencing a lot of crackpots who are not so rich, but who want a totally selfish and irresponsible society to continue at all costs for the benefit of those who love money and power. The country is corrupted by the love of wealth, and the image of power. Men will do anything for this love, and nothing else matters.

(My frustrations are to some extent those of all intellectuals in a society of business men and squares.)

Simone de Beauvoir has this to say, which corrects so many of the clichés about existentialism: “It is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom. To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future: the existence of others as a freedom defines my own situation and is even the condition of my own freedom.” (Ethics of Ambiguity, p. 91)