The Uttermost

The Eternal … what idea do I have of that?, W. says. Of the Power which created me, and before which I am always in the wrong? None at all!, W. says.

It's lucky that W. has some sense of despair, he says. Lucky that he is around to educate me, and show me me that the despair of the earthly is the way to salvation. Salvation will come, W. says, but first of all, I will have to choose despair. 

You have to have a sense of defeat, total defeat, W. says. The earthly itself must appear a wall, a blank wall, upon which you can make no purchase. But it must be a wall against which you are willing to run, again and again. A wall against which you must bash your head like a madman. Bashing it so that it – or you – might be destroyed.

In the case of the world versus you, back the world, Kafka said. But there is another option, W. says. You must realise that there's more than the world. That's the point I need to reach, the uttermost reach of despair. Then and only then might you know that the eternal is backing you.

If he knows about despair, W. says, it is because I have taught him it. Oh, not because of what I know, of what I told him. It's clear that I don't know despair, for all that I talk about it, for all I recommend he reads The Sickness Unto Death. No, it's only in relation to me – to the travesty of my existence on earth – that he can conceive of what the despair of the earthly might mean. It's only my presence – the travesty of my presence – that brought him to the uttermost.