The stuff that constituted him in that moment takes on yet another incarnation. A man, who imagines himself to be not just the individual just gone, but also the man before, and considers them all to be the same person, and yet, unlike them, does not fear death. Rather, he is of the impression that earlier that day, he had read an amusing anecdote in a newspaper (although he did not exist then, and so is mistaken), and the seeming remembrance of that anecdote, and the pleasure that it causes, occupies his mind entirely in the fraction of time in which he constitutes a presence in the world.
And he himself is replaced by another man, who lives but for an instant before being supplanted. Over and over, the pattern repeats, each man believing himself to be all of those others who preceded him, not in the sense of a multitude, but constituting the sequential existence of a single person.
Finally, after some years, a man comes into being to live, like the others, but for one moment. That moment passes. He is no more, and is succeeded by no one.
No comments:
Post a Comment