An Individual In Confrontation With The World, Pt. 11

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11 - Number of years in the sunspot cycle. The general number of magic or sorcery -- or energy tending to change. Uranus. Daath (or Egyptian Duat, Tuat). This is the individual in confrontation with the world. Hence its the number of Justice and Balance. It is also the number of war and the battle with the demonic element.

- E.E. Rehmus: The Magician's Dictionary

Externalize chaos, internalize peace.

Sebastian knew that he had been damaged at some crucial early stage of development in his life. He might go undergo years and years of therapy and psychoanalysis but would he ever be totally repaired? His solitude was not only of personal nature but something of a fundamental universal scale. He knew life was only a game, and that was an ultimately frightening revelation, since it only deepened his detachment from other people. One might lose one's mind revelling in it too much. Again, the tightrope walker who should not gaze in the abyss but just keep on walking...

His friend Leo would say to this: "It's action which liberates us from our past. We define ourselves through our actions, and everything else is insignificant. In the end, we are only as good as our actions are, and they will liberate us from our unhappy childhoods and the overbearing feelings of being misunderstood". Sebastian found it hard to accept Leo's crude existentialism and his crushing vitalism of the "Act first, worry about the consequences of your actions later on" principle.

Nevertheless, Leo would go on: "There are so many weak people who in fact enjoy their being weak, because that's the way they beg for sympathy. They are like parasites sucking on other people's lifeforce. They are all the time in some sort of crisis because they secretly enjoy their indeterminacy and, yes, suffering. They keep whining to us: 'I'm so broke up', but they do nothing to fix themselves up, because that way they wouldn't be able to derive their masochistic pleasures any more, and most important, they wouldn't be able to suck up our energies we waste in trying to comfort them. Basically, they are people who are too much in love with their pain that they would like to give it up. Alcoholism, drug addiction, bulimia, anorexia, compulsory over-eating; those are only excuses not to give up that sweet pain".

Sometimes Sebastian would mock Leo and call him a "Nietzschean crypto-fascist". To which Leo would retort: "You just like to take the piss out of me because you know I'm right", and give one of his irritating, complacent grins.