The Cult of Infinity
By E.M. Cioran
I cannot speak of infinity without experiencing a double vertigo,
both external and internal—as if, suddenly abandoning a well-ordered
existence, I threw myself into a whirlwind and began to move through
space at the speed of thought. My trajectory tends toward an eternal
and inaccessible point. The farther this point moves into inconceivable
distance, the faster the giddy gyrations of the whirlwind. Neither
bright nor graceful, they have the intricate pattern of cosmic flames.
The world is shaking and trembling, spinning at an infernally maddening
speed as if the apocalypse were approaching. One cannot grasp the
meaning of infinity without experiencing this strange vertiginous
feeling of the End. This is the paradox of infinity: it makes the
sensation of the end more real while at the same time making it ever
more impossible, for infinity, both in time and space, leads to nothing.
How can we accomplish anything in the future when we have behind us
an eternity in which nothing was accomplished? If the world had had
any meaning, it would have been revealed to us by now and we would
know it. How can I continue to believe that it will be disclosed in
the future when it has not been made manifest yet? But the world has
no meaning; irrational at the core, it is, moreover, infinite. Meaning
is conceivable only in a finite world, where one can reach
something, where there are limits to stop our regression, clear points
of reference, where history moves toward a goal envisioned by the
theory of progress. Infinity leads to nothing, for it is totally provisional.
"Everything" is too little when compared to infinity. Nobody
can have the experience of infinity without spells of dizziness, a
profound and unforgettable anxiety. How can one help being anxious
when all is equally infinite?
Infinity renders impossible any solution
to the problem of meaning. It gives me demonic pleasure to think that
the world lacks meaning because of infinity. What's the use of "meaning,"
after all? Can't we live without it? Universal meaninglessness gives
way to ecstatic inebriation, an orgy of irrationality. Since the world
has no meaning, let us live! Without definite aims or accessible ideals,
let us throw ourselves into the roaring whirlwind of infinity, follow
its tortuous path in space, burn in its flames, love its cosmic madness
and total anarchy! One must bear within oneself the germs of this
cosmic anarchy in order to grasp its meaning. To live infinity, as
well as to meditate a long time upon it, is the most terrifying lesson
in anarchy and revolt one can ever learn. Infinity shakes you to the
roots of your being, disorganizes you, but it also makes you forget
the petty, the contingent, and the insignificant.
How fortunate that, having lost all
our hopes, we can still leap into infinity, dive into boundlessness,
participate in the universal anarchy of its whirlwind! What happiness
to be carried away by the madness of this incessant movement and to
think less of our death than of our insanity, to fulfill a dream of
cosmic barbarity and boundless exaltation! Let our falling out of
this whirlwind not mean gradual extinction, but sustain our agony
in the chaos of the original maelstrom. Let the pathos and drama of
infinity come to us once more in the loneliness of death so that our
passing away into nothingness will resemble an illumination amplifying
the mystery and the meaninglessness of this world.
One of the principal elements of infinity
is its negation of form. Absolute becoming, infinity destroys
anything that is formed, crystallized, or finished. Isn't music the
art which best expresses infinity because it dissolves all forms into
a charmingly ineffable fluidity? Form always tends to complete what
is fragmentary and, by individualizing its contents, to eliminate
the perspective of the universal and the infinite; thus it exists
only to remove the content of life from chaos and anarchy. Forms are
illusory and, beyond their evanescence, true reality reveals itself
as an intense pulsation. The penchant for form comes from love of
finitude, the seduction of boundaries which will never engender metaphysical
revelations. Metaphysics, like music, springs from the experience
of infinity. They both grow on heights and cause vertigo. I have always
wondered why those who have produced masterpieces in these domains
have not all gone mad. Music more than any other art requires so much
concentration that one could easily, after creative moments, lose
one's mind. All great composers ought to either commit suicide or
become insane at the height of their creative powers. Are not all
those aspiring to infinity on the road to madness? Normality, abnormality,
are notions that no longer mean anything. Let us live in the ecstasy
of infinity, let us love that which is boundless, let us destroy forms
and institute the only cult without forms: the cult of infinity.
Excerpt from:
On the Heights of Despair
By E. M. Cioran
Translated and with an Introduction
by Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston
©The University of Chicago Press
ISBN (cloth): 0-226-10670-5
