The Third Circle: Gluttony (Cantos XIII-XV)

Thy city heap'd with envy to the brim,
Ay that the measure overflows its bounds,
Held me in brighter days. Ye citizens
Were wont to name me Ciacco. For the sin
Of glutt'ny, damned vice, beneath this rain,
E'en as thou see'st, I with fatigue am worn;
Nor I sole spirit in this woe: all these
Have by like crime incurr'd like punishment.

Canto XIII

"Was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker."

Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Only those who suffer hard grow iron wills. Living softly, comfortably, it is difficult for us to think of a good reason to move. Like a man lying on a sofa on a lazy Sunday, he only moves about so as to be more comfortable. Sometimes he must rise to use the restroom or to grab a bite to eat, but even these slight activities are agony.

The comfortable value their comfort, but only once they have experienced discomfort. They dwell, immersed within a viscous sea of inactivity, the comfort so perfectly enveloping that you don't even notice it until it slips away. Even then, you just yearn for your slime and muck to return, that you may slop about a little more.

It is only natural that in such times, nobler souls yearn for displeasure and actively pursue the damaging, the challenging, and the painful. Overwhelmed with disgust for the pervasive atmosphere of slime, they seek to suffer in the arid sun. Let our skins dry and chap! Let our bodies ache and burn! Imbued with the noble heart, these few would sacrifice anything for the merest chance to move freely, swiftly, and with purpose. Let the rest wallow in mediocrity. We will have no more of it.

Canto XIV

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Thoreau, Walden

Once you get out into the real world, you quickly discover that there are no rational people. How do people manage to remain so irrational? How do they manage to remain blind to the connections between their contradictory thoughts and actions?

The human mind can sense an impending contradiction in precisely the same way that we smell smoke before seeing a fire. There are many who would rather live with their contradictions than resolve them. These people find it imperative to look away from their living contradictions. Mindfully, they sniff out the stink of impending contradiction and immediately look away. A contradiction is near - beware! Stop thinking now, before it's too late!

For, once you lay eyes on a contradiction, it is already too late - the contradiction demands resolution. But you don't need to resolve your cognitive dissonance if you remain ignorant of it. It is in this way that most people live - for whatever reason, we pitiful human souls are simply too lazy and comfortable to bear through the work that is necessary to become rational and consistent in thought and deed.

Canto XV

"Supposing truth is a woman - what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers... have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman's heart?"

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Human beings are everywhere miserable. We hide it as best we can, but sadly even our bursts of passion are colored by an abject and pervasive suffering. Everywhere, everyone is in pain. Everywhere, everyone is suffering! How is it that we human beings manage to cope with this devastating state of affairs?

Miserable grouches that we are, we find recourse in drink and dance and song and sex, dimming our consciences and our consciousness both, dancing the nights away and slowly forgetting that we ever dreamed of a life without suffering. If we did not do all this, we would surely shoot ourselves, for to live contrary to one's reason is not merely intolerable, it is certainly unbearable.

Despite ourselves, we consciously pursue the clouding of our reason, and we call it fun and we call it pleasure. Even when we are hard pressed for our true opinions, we say the same. We say that it is fun and we say that it is pleasant. Is it pleasant to deaden one's reason? Is it fun to cloud one's mind for the sole purpose of forgetting one's own misery?

We slave away at our jobs, day in and day out, suffering every moment, waiting for Friday to come so that we might enjoy our lives just a little bit. But when the day finally comes, we have spent so much time suffering that we have forgotten how to enjoy life. We drink alcohol and we listen to loud music, we tell loud jokes and we laugh even louder. We spend so much time suppressing our urge to enjoy life that when Friday comes, it must be coaxed out of its hiding place through drink and dance.

We say that it is fun because it is fun; that is, because we don't remember what fun really is. We say that it is pleasant because it is pleasant; that is, because we don't remember what pleasure really is. One day there will come a reckoning for each of us, in which we faintly recall a desire we once had for something better. But by then, it may be too late.

The extraordinary of the ordinary

Excel only in their thinness;

Their subtlety scratches barely past

The thick protective hide

Dividing the common from the divine.

Truth is value,

And value truth.

The profound is essentially beyond

The grasp of the everyman.

Every man can come to it,

But he must pass over the crowd

Leaving behind his very self.

The worthy are scarce;

In economy, the divine.

Value truth,

For truth is value.

Prometheus was no hero.

By his very gifting of fire to man

Did he extinguish the singular divine flame.

The world is burning,

Where is there warmth?

If truth is a woman,

She must be won over, but more:

She must be led to herself

She must be led to us.

She loves no coarse hero,

No matter the heights of his bravado.

Although fortune favors the bold,

The truth responds better

To subtlety and finesse.