In each life, particularly at its dawn, there exists an instant which determines everything[….] This instant is not always a mere flash[….]

How old was I? Six or seven years I believe. Stretched out beneath the shade of a linden tree, gazing up at an almost cloudless sky, I saw the sky topple and sink into the void: it was my first impression of nothingness, all the more vivid in that it followed a rich and full existence[….] Commencing on this day I began to ruminate on the lack of reality in things[….] I was one of those men predestined to wonder why they live instead of actually living, or at most living only on the margins.

The illusory character of things was once again confirmed for me by the proximity, by my ceaseless frequenting of the sea; a sea whose ebb and flow, always mobile as it is in Brittany, disclosed in certain bays an expanse which the eye could only embrace with difficulty. What void! Rocks, mud, water… Since each day everything was put back into question, noting existed. I imagined a night aboard ship. No reference points. Lost, irremediably lost – and starless.

Seen in its vastness, existence is tragic; up close it is absurdly petty.

from Jean Grenier, Islands