Quotes by Hankiss Elemér

"

The garden is our own world, a world created by us and controlled by us. An ordered and harmonious universe, as opposed to the disordered and disharmonious outer world. The garden is one of those rare points in our lives and in the universe that we can truly keep in order and under our control.

"

Our civilization is a dazzling display of the meaning of life, freedom, the importance and immortality of humanity. Delusion and self-delusion, but it helps us live in a universe in which it is also possible that there is no meaning and no freedom and that human existence is infinitely fallible and transient.

"

In general, we believe that it is our task and opportunity to constantly build ourselves a better and better house than the one we already have. It is certainly right to do so. But it is possible that our real task and opportunity is rather to expand and undermine that world, day after day, again and again, which would collapse on us without these efforts.

"

I believe (...) that the main task of people and humanity is to solve the problems that arise in life. I don't think we should dwell too much on death and human suffering. We must face mortality and do everything we can to alleviate human suffering in this world.

"

Our predecessors were in a better position (...) because they could project and develop their internal conflicts with the help of myths and the rites associated with them.

"

There is no human society in which there is no fear and brutality, oppression and misery. Relations between societies and conflicts between tribes, ethnicities, nations, and countries still constitute a danger zone, full of potentially destructive forces. Through the cracks in the social fabric, the monsters of the alien world crawl or break into our world again and again.

"

The principle of natural selection serves the survival of the species, or the maintenance of the life process in general, and not its uniform well-being. This unstoppable force of life rushes forward blindly and mercilessly exploits and then destroys living things, from amoebas to human beings.

"

We humans can only live here on Earth in the same way that astronauts could live on the moon (...). Without their space suits, they would die instantly on that uninhabited and uninhabitable celestial body. Just as we would be irretrievably lost without our special space suit - our immune system - on this dangerous planet.

"

In cartoons, everything can be reversed, and as a result, time, death, causality lose their essence, lose their "bit".

"

One of the greatest burdens of human life is that what has already happened cannot be undone. Cartoons, however, constantly turn this iron law of reality upside down. Time and again they defeat causality and determinism by twisting the relationship between cause and effect. And with this they also overcome the ultimate irreversibility: death.

"

The clown, in his single-mindedness, is the only type of person who can never impose his selfish will on others. In this way, they are left out of one of the most consistently prevailing cause-and-effect chains, the chain of competing human aspirations, the "original sin" of selfishness that harms others. They are innocent.

"

In beauty, the ultimate ideals of the universe, Platonic ideas flash, and we shudder at the sight of their demonic power.

"

Beauty is closely related to the terrifying depths of universal existence; or let's say with non-existence, with the terror of an alien world.

"

The intermingling of horror and beauty is probably present in all works of art, even if we mostly do not acknowledge it, and if this duality is not present with the same force in all genres and not in all works of art of all ages. It is strong and evident in tragedies and comedies.

"

The sacred does not exist without the profane.

"

Language and language games, the casting of new and new webs of ideas on an ever-changing and volatile reality, yes, all of this is a powerful tool and opportunity to fight the forces of the alien world and the fears in our hearts.

"

We don't know who we are, we don't know where we come from, we don't know where we are going; we do not know what forces ultimately drive the universe and life; we do not know why we must suffer and why we must die; we do not know the meaning and purpose of our life; and so on. The answers to these questions and the assumptions and theories related to them cannot be proven or disproved. We cannot prove or disprove the existence of God; we cannot prove or disprove whether there is life after death; we cannot prove or disprove whether or not the universe and life have a purpose or meaning; we do not know whether we are free, whether we can freely decide our own fate; we do not know whether or not some moral principle operates in the universe.

"

A special, highly important place was given to man (...) in this universe also due to the fact that God created only him among all living beings in his own image, in contrast to other myths and religions, which often associate their gods with non-human, semi-human or animal beings, or even identified with monsters.

"

"Holiness" actually meant the presence of God in a given object, in a given place or in a person's life. God's presence in a profane world. The presence of real, authentic existence in an inauthentic, unreal universe. The hallowed place was a clearing in the wilderness of the alien world; God's bridgehead in this world. A window to transcendence. A microworld that, through the presence of God, has become a domain of freedom and security, meaningful and authentic existence in an alien world.

"

People would have been unable to create their own world for themselves. They needed divine help and protection. Benevolent spirits and powers had to be begged or forced to protect us. A "window" had to be opened for God to come down from heaven and visit this holy place, to move into this point of the physical world, which became a holy place by his presence. To the sanctuary of divine existence and true, authentic human existence.

"

We feel lost in this infinite universe and try to soften our anxiety with the belief and conviction that we are not negligible and indispensable nothingness on the edge of the universe, but on the contrary: the universe revolves around us. And if it revolves around us, then this universe is our universe, a human and not an alien world.

"

Since ancient times, people have struggled for the belief, faith or illusion that where they are, there is the center of the world. Or even because they themselves form the center of the universe. This illusion, this belief, this belief has protected people for thousands of years against the fear of having to live in an unknown and dangerous world.

"

Unable to accept the fatality of death, man is forced by his tragic situation and the horror of death to narcissistically present himself as a special and therefore immortal value.

"

The world is incomprehensible and absurd. It is full of uncertainty and anxiety. The personification of evil has always served to reduce this sense of uncertainty and anxiety. By condensing the chaotic and unknown forces of evil into living beings, persons, evil spirits, demons, devils, they localized and limited these forces.

"

People do not have a life, but a life strategy, which is less and more than life. Man is the only creature on this planet that does not have a natural environment.

"

The excruciating experience of fear and anxiety causes people to surround themselves with protective shields of symbols, myths, belief systems and ideas, to fill the void around them with the sounds of music, the meaning of words and, if necessary, angels. And with all of this, they create, let them create, what we usually call civilization or culture as a summary.

"

One of the most important functions of myths and religions was to reduce the complexity of the world and thereby reduce human anxiety in this world. They showed that the majority of creation myths also explained how evil, evil, and human suffering entered the world. They also wrote about how myths helped people emotionally overcome time, transience, and death. And so on. I learned a lot from all of this. Myths also had the task of projecting some kind of moral order and harmony into an unknown, dark and fearful universe.

"

If the protective system of symbols (...) is damaged, if the symbol systems can no longer provide meaningful answers to people's questions and fears, then an era of uncertainty and anxiety will follow in the given society.

"

It is impressive to see the effort and determination with which people, since the beginning of unwritten and written history, surrounded themselves and surround themselves not only with the walls of their caves, houses and cities, not only with their cathedrals and sports halls, but also myths and religions, philosophies and sciences, ideas and illusions, images and also with the symbolic sphere of works of art.

"

Humans needed security and created or discovered the world of angels, which then surrounded them as a protective sphere in an alien world.

"

We love scents. We enjoy them. Life would certainly be bleaker without them. But by themselves, in their natural state, they play a modest role in our lives. However, when they are transformed into fragrances and perfumes, they are suddenly filled with magical power.

"

The Vanity Fair is not a fair for vanities, frivolous and trivial things. Because our vanities are deadly serious. So much so that instead of Vanitatum vanitas we should rather say Vanitatum gravitas; the importance and seriousness of our vanities.

"

Man had to fight not only with nature, but also with the problems of the society he created and the unknown forces in his soul.

"

Signals of fear and distress are needed to avoid danger. But why are these warning signals so unbearably strong and ubiquitous?

"

If we lived in complete harmony with this world, if we did not constantly bump into the edges and corners of this world, if we were not exposed to the attack of dangerous and destructive forces at every point of our lives, then this world and this life could in principle be a world without suffering and pain.

"

Inanimate objects - rocks, stones, hills, grains of dust - are more durable than we are, it is true, they are polished, worn, ground, transformed, they fit into this universe better than we do.

"

Over time, all our attempts failed. We are only able to measure it, but we cannot get out of it. And especially: we cannot stop it or reverse it.

"

The simplest, but at the same time one of the hardest proofs that we don't fit, or at least don't fit completely into this world, is the fact that we have to die. Or to put it another way, despite all our efforts, we have not managed to subjugate time and bring it under our control.

"

We are all more or less sleepwalkers in this world. We move around here with childlike naivety and carelessness, not acknowledging or daring to admit to ourselves that we live in a world full of dangers, in which it is very easy to get hurt or even perish. We tend not to acknowledge that we live in a world that is only to a certain extent compatible with our constitution, needs and desires.

"

The relationship between the inanimate and animate forms of being is contradictory. Their compatibility and assembly is partial and fragmentary. The physical world enables life, but it also limits and destroys it. You have to fight life and death to exist in this world.

"

We could say that we mean something different by happiness than the one who created us, and that's why we don't really find our place in this world, that's why we don't fit in with the world, that's why we're, to use an ugly foreign word, incompatible with the world.

"

In our indulgence, we tend to forget how extremely difficult it was to get started on this planet.

"

Throughout its history and in every moment of its existence, humanity had to fight and create its own freedom, security and dignity in a universe full of dangers and fears.

"

Civilization is a matter of life and death. That sounds a bit pretentious, but it's probably true. People and human communities would not have been able to live on this planet if they had not surrounded themselves - not only with the walls of their castles, cities and houses, weapons, tools, laws and institutions, but also with protective spheres of symbols: myths and religions, beliefs and values , with ideas and theories, brilliant constellations of works of art. In short, with a brilliant construct: their civilization.

"

Civilization is not a luxury. It is not limited to civilized behavior and the beauty of the Parthenon or the Duomo in Florence. It is more than the sum total of kinship formations and rituals, the brilliance of Platonic and Kantian ideas, the colorful swirl of Hollywood, the gliding of trains running precisely to the minute and the melody of a Mozart sonata playing in the background.

"

Today, we know that our pursuit of ever greater security and ever greater comfort also carries with it the danger of destruction and destruction. Today we know that we have the power to do so, and perhaps even our tendency and irresponsibility to destroy ourselves.

"

People had to fight not only for physical but also for mental, psychic and spiritual survival, and they fought by surrounding themselves with symbols and symbol systems. The importance of these symbolic protective shields cannot be overstated.

"

Culture is not a luxury, but a matter of life and death. Humanity would have been lost if it had not been able to surround and protect itself with complex systems of symbols.

"

Only those who have the courage to create their own world through authentic elections can be free. Those who do not undertake this, or who fail, are subjugated by the routines of everyday life.

"

The music (...) almost offers itself to be seen as a symbol of human existence in an alien world. It rises from the nothingness of silence, and - after drawing its shining arcs and arabesques into the darkness of the universe - plunges back into nothingness, into silence. Resignedly or despairingly, with a sigh, loudly cheering or bitterly protesting.

"

Kitsch probably remains outside the realm of true art because it does everything to be 100 percent beautiful.

"

To create something from nothing, to build constellations from symbols, perhaps from nothing, to build a world of freedom, reason and dignity in a silent and empty universe: this, I believe, was work worthy of a man. It was a real human adventure.

"

The absurdity of death, the utter meaninglessness of death, can only be overcome if there is something beyond human existence. Something that makes this life meaningful despite the inevitable finitude, breaking, and destruction of individual life. A broader framework within which the finite human life has meaning, purpose, task and benefit.

"

One of the main abilities and functions of the human mind has always been, and this applies especially to the scientific mind, to reveal the cause-and-effect relationships behind natural processes and to use this to predict future events.

"

The desire to destroy life and the instinct for death and destruction are simultaneous with the instinct for life and love. The struggle between these two principles is not only the center of the eternal human drama, but also the main driving force behind the development of human civilization.

"

In the given world, suffering threatens us from all sides: from our body, from the outside world, and finally from our relationships with other people. And not least from our own psyche, in which guilt is one of our cruelest executioners.

"

Guilt paralyzes a person, reduces his resistance, makes him more defenseless against oppression.

"

There is a great temptation for man to give up the struggle he is waging for the realization of the divine essence within him; all the more so because it is all too easy to fail.

"

We tend to believe that if something is understandable, it also means that this something has some meaning. However, this is not always the case.

"

Its fundamental and complex role may be the reason why losing one's home, in war, earthquake or as a result of family crises, is one of the greatest traumas of human life. Having lost one's home, a person suddenly becomes naked again, fragile and defenseless in a foreign world.

"

It is not (...) enough that man searched for caves for himself or built his house and city with strong walls. He had to protect his home with the help of magic, rituals, myths, religions - symbols and symbol systems - in a foreign world full of dangers.

"

In our exhaustion, we don't like it when a selfless gesture warns us that we could also live as social beings.

"

The garden is a protected enclave, a closed area surrounded by a wall or fence or a hedge. A sanctuary in which the alien world has been tamed into a human world. We only allow those elements and creatures of nature and the outside world in, we tolerate those with which we are not at war; which serve our comfort and delight us. We exclude all other living beings from it, or if they invade, we destroy them.

"

We all have our lives (...), but only the one whose life journey has some kind of meaning - it tells something important about being human to himself or to those who are able to hear.

"

All life wants to expand. The grass, the beetle, the antelope: they all want to fill the possible space of their lives. Man too. And man can overcome all obstacles better than the majority of living beings, he can exterminate all living beings that stand in his way. Tigers, eagles and crocodiles are clumsy beginners in comparison.

"

Life is nothing but the accidental and rich proliferation of infinite possibilities.

"

There are small, closed circles in life where you can feel that your life has meaning. The "garden" where he immerses himself in pruning the fruit trees, the "workshop" where soon the last component will fit into the perpetual motion machine, the "attic" where masterpieces can be created, the "library" where the thoughts of humanity buzz.

"

It is good if everyone does their work peacefully and conscientiously, the sower plows, the fisherman fishes, the sailor adjusts the sails, the teacher teaches, the doctor heals. This is our daily life. At the same time, it would be good to believe that a person not only plows, sows, raises children, builds, heals, but also has a "deeper" meaning and significance in his life, is a part and character of some bigger, more important event, drama.

"

The majority of mythological and religious rationality and traditional philosophies defined life as having not only meaning, i.e. not only being understandable, but meaning, significance, and purpose. Moreover, the meaning and purpose of life was even easier to define than its meaning. Few doubted that life has some deep meaning and purpose, even if human reason cannot necessarily understand and grasp this meaning or purpose.

"

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are all part of an eternity that is incomprehensible to man.

"

A tragic shock in its harsh rawness and brutality could seriously shake one's faith in life, in oneself, in the world. However, no such destruction and devastation takes place in the theater. It doesn't happen because a whole series of factors protect the viewer from this danger. Above all, it is protected by the fact that the tragedy here is only a "play".

"

To protect ourselves in this world, we surround ourselves not only with myths and religions, thoughts and beliefs. But also with music. With sounds and rhythms, melodies and harmony. Music also protects us in a foreign world. It fills the void around us; the terrifying emptiness of silence. We whistle at night in the forest so that we are not afraid and not so defenseless in the dark. African tribes fill the void around them with the rhythmic rumble of drums. When we sing, waves of singing fill the space around us. With a Walkman on our belt and headphones on our heads, we shut out the real world; we can walk down the noisiest street of a terrifying metropolis, yet we can feel ourselves in the middle of the world of music and harmony. We are surrounded by an invisible protective shell of melodies and rhythms. When the music stops, the realm of nothingness and silence surrounds us again.

"

Listening to a joke, watching a cartoon or watching the feats of a clown acrobat is like riding a roller coaster. In the first moments when we start going down, as if we are being tickled, we feel more and more lighter, we are more and more freed from the slavery of the physical world, gravity, we laugh more and more happily. When our cars speed up, when we almost start to fall helplessly, when we already feel that we are falling out of the world, then our laughter turns more and more into hysterical screaming. The next moment, however, an elegant turn slows our freefall, and we triumphantly and elegantly return to our everyday world: we laugh with relief.

"

Logical jokes sneak us into the realm of the irrational and the absurd in the blink of an eye. Political jokes venture into the free but dangerous world of anarchy. (...) Cynical, skeptical and sacrilegious jokes attempt to destroy dignity and truth, social interests and institutions.

"

Jokes (...) - no matter how incredible it sounds at the moment - are experimenting with destroying the basic structures of the human world. For a moment, they explode the rational and causal structures of the universe; the system of social conventions and values; the moral norms and political hierarchies of our society. The next moment, they let the pieces of the mosaic fall back into place.

"

We laugh when we feel free, happy, masters of the world, of life; when life is beautiful, when we feel at home in this world. But we will see that, in a strange way, we laugh even when we suddenly drop out of our lives, when we "fall out of the world"; if something pushes us, if only for a moment, into the abyss of an unknown and alien world. Jokes do exactly that to us: they push us into an abyss. Jokes aren't kidding. They are not trivial. A destructive and at the same time liberating demon resides in them. They are dangerous.

"

There are no innocent jokes, although there are innocent laughs. We laugh when - freed from some kind of tension, anxiety, or burden - we are suddenly relieved. We laugh with joy when something unexpectedly succeeds. We laugh when our children say or do something kind; when our love smiles at us; when we feel happy. There are other kinds of laughter. Our laughter can be innocent and evil, angelic and diabolical. We can laugh in our joy and in our pain. We laugh when we're happy, and we laugh when we'd rather cry.

"

In the universe of thoughts, and - if it's something else - in the universe of physical laws, a person can be a slave or free. At the moment, we do not yet know how much we are prisoners and how much we are free. We only know a tiny fraction of the universe.

"

Yes, I'm wrong. I am looking for what is new, what is still obscure, what may be important, what is still alive, what is more than what is given and known today. Yes, I am wandering, adventuring, or even scheming. I'm playing. I don't think I'm arrogant enough to think I've found the truth. And I'm not so anxious that I cling to it convulsively, clinging to the handle I hope is secure, which I once grabbed. And really: I don't want to get out of the jungle. From the jungle of life and a thousand possibilities. From the jungle full of secrets, surprises, discoverable truths. I don't want to get to that certain, very transparent "sandy, watery plain" too soon. Where there is no hope.

"

We have to search for the truth, but again and again we have to doubt our own, almost certain truths.

"

People have an irresistible need for catharsis. There is still hope for the belief, the illusion that no matter how much trouble and suffering there is in the world, everything will turn out well in the end. Without this, without faith or illusion, life would be more difficult.

"

The audience coming out of comedies is sometimes in a worse mood than the audience of tragedies. You can get sick from laughing so much, after so much fun you can easily feel empty as you step out into the cool, foggy October evening.

"

In reality, the world is big and I am small, lost in it. Then I buy a theater ticket, sit in the auditorium, and all of a sudden the dice are turned: the world suddenly shrinks, is trapped between the four walls of the stage, and I, like an observing philosopher or diviner, watch from the outside what is happening in it. Like when a child holds a glass ball in his hand and sees the whole world through it. This transubstantiation is one of the sources of the theater's charm.

"

Happy and enviable is the person who has found his role in life.

"

Every choice is a moment of freedom, because then I kill all my other lives, close the gate behind them.

"

If you look back on your life in twenty years, what will you say, what was the point? Almost no one can answer this very important question.

"

The only real sin is when a person causes pain to another living being, mutilates, paralyzes, disfigures others or his own life; if it does not help others to unfold their lives; if he does not develop in himself all the ability that lies within him as a possibility; if he does not discover in the universe and in himself everything that only he can discover. That is, if he leaves in the dark domain of non-existence what could have become Being through him.

"

It would be good to believe that in the course of our history, man, humanity, has become paler, civilized, and more humane. It would be nice to believe that there is less suffering in the world today than there was, say, a hundred or a thousand years ago. If we think about the results of science, we can rejoice. If we think of the "bloody twentieth century", the two world wars, the death camps, Cambodia, Sudan, the three or four billion people living in deep poverty, the billions of animals losing their living space and dying of hunger, then we can cry.

"

I don't believe, nor would I want, that man would eventually discover all the secrets of the universe and existence (and perhaps God). As long as there is a secret, there is a future, there is hope.

"

I think that the concept of "love" is often misused. We mention it too often. I believe in the importance of love, if that word means being together in an endless, empty, dark universe; to try to alleviate the suffering of others, to protect each other's lives; we help each other to stand our ground with integrity, so that our lives are fulfilled, so that we can accept the fragility and transience of our lives; we help each other face impermanence, the threatening doubt of the futility of all things.

"

"Unbelievers" are not only those who do not believe in God or some other supernatural, transcendent being or spirit. The real unbelievers are those who don't believe in anything. Neither in God nor in man. They don't believe in themselves. They do not believe in life, in the sanctity of life. They don't believe in the possibility of joy. They don't believe in helping others. They don't believe that life can have any meaning.

"

It is not good that people are forced every day to stand up for their convictions with heroic courage, whatever the consequences; or, not feeling the strength for this heroism, ashamed of themselves, tucking their ears and tails in, and with a bad conscience, slyly, side-talking, muttering, and looking confused, continue the dialogue with each other and the world. It is not good if there are so many barriers between the command of conscience and the spoken word that you can only break through them with a heroic effort. It is not good if heroism is required for what should be a natural human gesture, an everyday social practice.

"

In his book on play, Jan Huizinga gives an excellent example of how play is a "like world" of flickering between the world of reality and the world of appearance. The anecdote is about a young father who, upon entering the room, sees his four-year-old son sitting in the first chair of a row of chairs and "playing train". As he is about to hug his son, the little boy says: "Don't kiss the locomotive, dad, because then the wagons won't believe it's real!" The locomotive is a chair, but it's like a locomotive; we know it's not a locomotive and yet we act "as if" it were. It would be worthwhile for us to enter this pretend game more often. We should pretend that we are not afraid; that we are free; that we are responsible citizens; that we trust each other; that we can help those in need; that we can build a better world; that we are mortal; that we live forever; that life is a game; that life is not a game; that there is a meaning to one's life.

"

Yes, gaming is certainly one of those ancient, fundamental forces that created human civilization. But it is unlikely to predate civilization itself. There may be something in common between play and the "archetypal activities" of humanity, but (...) this does not mean that play "permeates" all human activities. And finally, it is a beautiful and uplifting aphorism to say: "all play" - instead of repeating with bitter resignation: "all vanity." But it's not true. Because not everything is a game.

"

The game is not everywhere in the world. There is nothing like some life-giving salt dissolved and dissolved in the substance of the world. On the contrary: it barely fits in with the world. Unique and special in the world. It collides with the world. It is the opposite of the "non-human world", the world we live in, which we call the "alien world".

"

A person can also fail by being unable to live a full life. He is unable to be fully present in this world. He may be unable to experience the passage of time as an existential reality, as an "eternal now." Then, when the demon of impermanence threatens him, he tries to fill the moment with as many ephemeral things as possible; he imagines that his life continues even after the end of time, and that his life is endless, without being eternal.

"

In order to protect ourselves, we do not want to acknowledge that the world is indifferent and merciless, that our lives are fallible and fragile. We want to live with the possibility of escape and victory. Something like this may have been the driving force that developed in us the ability to transform danger into opportunity and defeat into victory.

"

The discovery or invention of Satan was one of mankind's most brilliant achievements. At least for the civilizations that created this myth. It has become one of the most important tools and weapons in the fight against evil and suffering. It became a tool by which man living in Western civilization successfully reduced anxiety and fear from the presence of evil.

"

Human history is actually a learning process in which evil only serves to test us and lead us on the path of love, virtue and wisdom. Evil will gradually be eliminated from the human world.

"

Senseless and incomprehensible suffering (...) is harder to bear. It is easier to endure and accept suffering if one knows, or believes that one knows, the cause and source of it. What's the point.

"

Baptism was one of the most important weapons against evil. According to Christian belief, an unbaptized person remains a "victim of demons". According to tradition, baptism also recalls the miracle of the ancient crossing of the Red Sea. Under the protection of the sacrament of baptism, believers pass through the dangerous waters of worldly life, but the devil drowns in the waters, just as Pharaoh's army drowned in the crashing waves of the Red Sea.

"

The presence of evil in the world must have been a fundamental experience of man and human communities from the beginning. This may explain the zeal with which people have always tried to banish evil from their lives and world. All possible and impossible means were used for this purpose. Throughout its history, humanity seems to have lived in a constant state of siege.

"

For two thousand years, Satan moved at home in the imagination of Western civilization. He was one of the protagonists of the cosmic drama taking place in the background of our civilization. But it was an entrance - through the back door of instincts and insults - in our everyday life as well. Our civilization would be radically different if human fear and hope had not created his terrible and seductive, majestic and demonic figure at the time.

"

The shopping center is an amoral world. Although in a trivial way, he got over the opposite of good and bad. In traditional and modern societies, people's behavior and actions were governed by moral laws. They were encouraged to tame their instincts and desires and transform them into humanly and socially useful forces. By encouraging people to indulge all their instincts and desires without reservation, Satan is actually locking them in the cage of their instincts. It deprives them of their freedom and the chance to become human.

"

Both cathedrals and cars are actually suggestive symbols of human safety and freedom. Cathedrals provided protection to the faithful against both physical and spiritual dangers. Cars do this too. In their hermetically sealed inner space, they protect people against the forces of nature, but also protect them spiritually and psychologically by excluding the noises and worries, physical and social problems of the outside world, and provide them with the sacred intimacy of being alone for a few minutes or hours.

"

Geometric shapes and numerical proportions have always been extremely important to the symbolic imagination. This was not alien to theoretical thinking either. We could also say that philosophical and mathematical thinking also has a mythical dimension. Not only in the deep layers of philosophical but also mathematical thinking, there is, or may be, the desire to discover the invisible but essential order and orderliness of the universe beneath the disorder of everyday life.

"

Churches and cathedrals are the ultimate symbols of sacred enclaves, domains of God on earth, microcosms of man in an alien world. Humans have done everything to protect these microcosms in as many ways and means as possible. With the way the place of the church or cathedral was chosen, with the floor plan and the internal arrangement of the churches, with the pattern of the surfaces, the consecration ceremony, the symbolic presence of God and so on.

"

The house is the human world par excellence. Our world because we built it. Measured by human standards, the construction of the house is the closest thing to the divine creation of the world. In my home I am the creator and the master. I say: let there be light, and indeed the next moment the lights will come on. I define the day and the night, I set the stars of the chandelier in this microworld. It's not for nothing that the house and room have a "ceiling". My house is my universe. The fact that I see the world from my house, and the world does not see me, is an almost divine position and power.

"

As a result of the weakening of our traditional belief systems, the universe and the meaning of life have become more and more confused and obscured in the past decades and centuries. It is becoming more and more difficult to believe that our life and the universe have a meaning and purpose beyond ourselves.

"

If someone suddenly asked us the question, what is the meaning and purpose of human life, most of us would stand confused and not know what to answer. We have forgotten the traditional answers, or we no longer believe in them, but we have not yet found new answers. If we can ever find it at all.

"

Just as water is the opposite of fire or the sacred is the profane, so is the game the opposite of the everyday world and the alien world hidden behind it. Every game starts with you distancing yourself from that world. It creates a magical circle around itself. It surrounds its own space, the playing field.

"

In some countries, the executioner was charged with manslaughter during the expedited judicial process after the execution, and then acquitted. If there is or was such a practice, it well characterizes the mentioned duality: that if the interests of society so desire, one can take someone's life, but human life is an absolute value, its destruction is a sin, and this sin must be solved somehow. The same is exemplified by the practice in the American federal states, where death row prisoners are executed by poison, that not one, but three employees have needles in their hands, two have a neutral liquid, one has poison, and no one knows which hand is full of poison. needle.

"

The purpose of life is to live. To stay alive. But why is this a goal? Because living is good, living is pleasant? So is the state of pleasantness the goal? Or do I want to stay alive because dying or not existing is bad? That is, the purpose of life is to avoid pain and suffering? Or do I want to stay alive to see the world? But why is it important, why is it a goal for a mortal being to learn about the world? Is there a broader framework within which this knowledge becomes an important, meaningful goal?

"

Man (...) becomes guilty by not being able to truly and fully realize these possibilities; your freedom. He is the only living being in the world who possesses language, speech, with the help of which he can free himself "from the slavery of the given situation"; but he does not necessarily succeed. He is a free being by being able to question the world; but you may be asking the wrong questions. He is a free being by being able to weigh things and make decisions; but he doesn't necessarily have the courage to make real and genuine decisions. He is a free being insofar as he is able to create other worlds beyond the given world; but he may lack the inspiration and willpower necessary to create. It is a free being insofar as it can contradict itself and its own essential nature; but he can also fall prey to his instincts and nature.

"

Modern humanity has benefited enormously from the triumphant progress of science. The comfort of the modern world is based on the results of science. We are all beneficiaries. But despite this, we still cling to our former illusions, if they were illusions, and we are unable to accept the message of science that we are not at home in this universe. That the universe was not intended for us, and was not intended for anyone and anything in general.

"

Civilization is also an "artificial" world, a "formation", a protective shell that humanity has woven from dreams and myths, thoughts and knowledge, values ​​and beliefs, experiences and ideas, and with which it has surrounded itself in order to defend itself against the dangers, fears and anxieties of an alien world. . Against a world in which one must fight not only for physical survival, but also for hope and freedom, harmony and the meaning of life. And it can.

"

People have always felt the presence of the alien world. Anxiety about this has always lurked beneath the surface of their lives. One possible way to reduce this anxiety was to face it openly. Different ages and civilizations have experimented with this confrontation in many ways. Rites and ceremonies usually played a big role in this. And the heroes played a big role, searching for and defeating the monsters of the unknown world during the dangerous adventures.

"

We experience the intensity of superhuman existence and the nothingness of our own existence in the blinding light of beauty. Similarly, we could say that some ultimate and eternal harmony is kindled in beauty, a harmony that has suddenly become aware of the misery of our own world and the painful impermanence of our existence.

"

Most of the early church fathers were convinced that man had no reason to laugh and no excuse for joking. Living in the valley of mourning, in the shadow of original sin, crying and mourning are much more fitting for a person than laughter and frolic.

"

Instead of doing something feverishly all the time, we should let things happen to the world and to us. We should allow chance and freedom into our lives and let the world create itself. We should learn to simply be again, to exist. We should learn from the deep reverence and peacefulness of the child at play.

"

The image of God creating the world playing and dancing is a creation of man's mythical imagination. Nevertheless, it is possible that it refers to some important property of the universe. To the eternal and cool indifference of the universe, for example. Or to that noble harmony that shines in the depths of our existence beyond the convulsions and torments of life. Maybe it gives a glimpse of the otherworldly freedom and serenity that we so long for and that are so lacking in our everyday lives. Perhaps the message is that we can only achieve and experience this freedom if we can detach ourselves from the murderous struggle for survival and power.

"

Sometimes we have to jump out of the prison of causality that strictly defines our daily life. And the game allows you to, without risking too much. The game is "as if" and thus the losses we suffer here are not permanent. And even within the game, we are careful and try to minimize the risk. We rarely risk our good fortune by throwing our gold Swiss watch in the air and trying to catch it. Too high a risk would spoil the fun of the game. A single cherry may have just the right market value for this purpose.

"

The human being feels burdened by the fact that he must constantly exist within a strict grid system of causes and effects. At times, you may feel the desire to break out of this rigid system, to step into the realm of freedom for a moment, or at least into a world where the cause and effect system of your everyday life does not work.

"

In the world of the game, we are freed from the world of original sin. In this world, one is not only allowed to defeat and destroy one's opponent, one is specifically encouraged to do so. Here we can exercise our aggressiveness, our thirst for success, our desire for power, and we can do all this without committing a sin, without falling into the net of the subconscious world, where the furies of guilt, shame and embarrassment would torment us.

"

In many civilizations, buildings, especially homes and important public buildings, were considered the center of the world, which filled their inhabitants with a sense of security and significance due to their central location.