One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand

by Luigi Pirandello

Solitude is never where you are; it is always where you are not, and is only possible with a stranger present;

True solitude is to be found in a place that lives a life of its own, but which for you holds no familiar footprint, speaks in no known voice, and where accordingly the stranger is yourself.

When I took up my position in front of a mirror, something like a lull occurred inside me; all spontaneity vanished; every gesture impressed me as being fictitious or a repetition.

My one supreme effort must be this: not to see myself in me, but to be seen by me, with my very own eyes, but as if I were another, that other whom all see and I do not.

“that is the whole thing, this domineering. Each one wants to impose upon others that world he has within, as if it were an outward entity, as if all ought to see it after his fashion, it being impossible for others to exist there save as he sees them.”

One’s aim should be never to see one’s self. For the reason that, however much you may try, you can never know yourself as others see you. And of what use is it, then, to know one’s self for one’s self’s sake?

For a name is no more than that, an epitaph. Something befitting the dead. One who has reached a conclusion. I am alive, and I reach no conclusion. Life knows no conclusion. Nor does it know anything of names.

I am dying every instant, and being born anew and without memories: alive and whole, no longer in myself, but in everything outside.